Sales of diesel cars in Britain have overtaken those of petrol for the first time, according to the latest survey of the Society of Motoring Manufactures and Traders (SMMT).
Diesel car sales have increased by 11.8 per cent year-on-year to take a 50.6 per cent market share, mainly boosted by drivers trying to beat the all time high fuel prices.
Petrol car registrations, which benefitted most from the scrappage scheme, have plunged by 13.2 per cent year-on-year.
Alternatively fuelled vehicles such as hybrids also enjoyed record highs this July, rising by 52.6 per cent to take a 1.4 per cent market share.
The SMMT predicts that 2.018 million new car units will be sold in 2010, an increase of 1.2 per cent over 2009.
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Re: Diesel sales overtake petrol
Re: Diesel sales overtake petrol
There are rather a lot of old-fashioned, out-dated, "head in the sand" opinions being bandied around here about diesel.
First off, diesel isn't going to go away. The country's whole haulage industry alone will ensure that. Secondly, modern diesels are no longer the tractor engines they used to be. They are smooth, quiet, very efficient and have very good torque across the complete power band.
And finally, if you average over 15K miles a year and plan to keep your car for at least 5 years, diesel makes very good sense. I should imagine there is a fair proprtion of private motorists who fit into that category before we even start looking at the commercial sector.
Re: Diesel sales overtake petrol
I've just spent the last 10 minutes laughing at all this arguing.
But why all the anger and hatred towards diesel or petrol? Both have their pro's and con's and in 'the real world' a diesel is probably better if you do higher mileages.
I chose a 2.0 diesel A3 because my company car policy said I had to have a car below 120 g/km CO2. I had no choice, and I would guess this is the same for a lot of people who are governed by such policies (whether they are right or wrong). Given the choice, I would have preferred a 1.8T petrol but never mind.
I'm just happy to be in a nice car.