WATT A WINNER!
These are tough and confusing times for Britain’s motorists seeking car bargains, as official figures just out show while new cars sales are up, those for secondhand vehicles are down. so in what car bosses admit are ‘volatile’ markets, it will pay to do your homework and shop around.
sales of new cars rose for a sixth consecutive month in January — up 14.7 per cent on January 2022 with 131,994 registered, according to the society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
Topping the chart last month was Chinese-owned MG with its £31,095 MG HS plug-in hybrid SUV with 3,481 sales, followed by the volkswagen T-roc, Nissan Qashqai, Kia Niro and vauxhall Corsa.
electrified cars spearheaded the rise, with hybrid-electric vehicles up a huge 40.6 per cent to 18,975 sales, pure battery-electric vehicles up 19.8 per cent, and plug-in hybrids (phevs) up just 0.7 per cent as petrol and diesel sales declined.
By contrast, second-hand sales figures published yesterday by the SMMT show the used car market declined 8.5 per cent in 2022 to just under 6.9 million transactions.
It meant 640,179 fewer vehicles changing hands than in 2021 and remains 13.2 per cent off 2019’s pre-pandemic total as the squeeze on new car supply caused by the global shortage of semiconductors restricted stock entering the second-hand market.
One bright spot was record demand for used electrified vehicles, as transactions of pure evs soared by 37.5 per cent, with hybrids up 8.6 per cent and phevs 3.6 per cent ahead of 2021 performance.
Biggest used seller last year was the Ford Fiesta, followed by the vauxhall Corsa, VW Golf, Ford Focus, vauxhall Astra, Mini, BMW 3-series, VW polo, Audi A3 and BMW 1-series.
As befits such straitened times, the most popular used colours were sober black, blue and grey.