Currently reading: Diesel sales overtake petrol
Cost-conscious buyers turn to diesel to beat high fuel prices

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.

Alex Kersten

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beachland2 9 August 2010

Re: Diesel sales overtake petrol

Euro 6 regs will be a great improvement for us in the UK, but not for another 10 years or so. not soon enough to protect todays adults and children from getting lung disease.

euro regs are not enforceable on new car sales that are not brand new models i believe.

I am more pessimistic than most due to being in cornwall where cars and commercial hgv or vans are a generation behind many other places, due to low incomes.

MattDB 9 August 2010

Re: Diesel sales overtake petrol

Straight Six Man wrote:
Pretty soon the Govt will realise the CO2 myth no longer holds water and they'll start taxing cars on NOx (a real pollutant). Then we'll see diseasals wiped off the face of the planet as the polluting, unreliable, outdated heaps of junk they are.

Euro 6 regulations will cover the issue for NOX and Particulate Matters and many cities in europe measure the levels of NOX already with some pondering the introduction of a city centre ban on diesels. The CO2 story is a bit of an environmental con and when taxation is eventually measured against NOX and PM which it will one day then all of the diesel drivers will get hit in the wallet and be banned from inner cities which will be exclusive zones for EV's and ultra low emission petrols and hybrids.
dgc4rter 9 August 2010

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.