Currently reading: Hybrid already more popular than diesel in Britain, report says
A new National Franchised Dealer Association survey shows impact of diesel’s recent downfall

British motorists are more likely to opt for hybrid than diesel when they buy their next car, according to the results of a survey compiled by the National Franchised Dealer Association (NFDA).

Of the 1000 respondents in the study, of which 490 were male and 510 were female, just 12% said they were considering buying a diesel car for their next vehicle purchase. Not only is this a tiny proportion for a fuel type that once accounted for nearly half of all new car sales, it's also a marked decrease on the 23% of respondants opting for diesel in an Autocar survey compiled just one year ago.

This means that, according to the NFDA's survey, diesel ranks behind hybrid power, which was the choice for 13% of respondents.

Although relatively small in scale, the study illustrates the extent of consumers' loss of confidence in diesel. Sales for black-pump vehicles have tumbled in recent months and now account for 33.5% of the market, down from a 44% share last year.

The results of the survey suggest that the chances of sales recovering any time soon are low. The UK Government’s recent diesel tax hike will no doubt present another barrier to diesel's recovery.

National Grid plans 350kW EV charge network

Petrol ranks top in the NFDA study, with 41% of respondents saying they’d choose a car of this fuel type for their next vehicle purchase. However, the second most popular answer is ‘don’t know’, backing suggestion that the UK’s recent new car sales downturn has been in part triggered by a general fall in consumer confidence.

The survey shows that most consumers are still some way off opting for a plug-in electrified car as their next purchase. Plug-in hybrid was chosen by just 2% of participants.

Pure electric was the top choice for only 1%. In fact, 59% of respondents ranked purchase cost as a main reason for not opting for a pure electric vehicle, while battery range and access to charging infrastructure were highlighted as a concern for 53% and 52% of participants respectively.

More content:

JLR confirms 1000 contract jobs to go due to diesel sales slump

BMW 'confident' it can win solid state battery race

Advertisement

Read our review

Car review
Peugeot 108
The Peugeot 108 is the French car firm's rival to the Volkswagen Up and Hyundai i10

New-shape baby Peugeot fares well with improved rear end and small engines. Can it threaten the class leaders?

Join the debate

Comments
38
Add a comment…
Ratho1 18 April 2018

Hybrids

I've been driving hybrids for 6 years now, two Auris' averaging 55 m.p.g. and now a 4th gen Prius averaging 68 m.pg. in temperatures of around 5c. As most people know these cars fuel consumptions are very temperature sensitive, so when the warmer weather comes I expect to be up into the low 70s and I don't hang about. Aside from the blessings of low impact on my wallet for petrol, these cars are comfortanle, quiet, pothole resistant and utterly reliable. In sport mode they will out gun a Porsche from traffic lights, albeit admittedly only up to about 40 m.p.h. if that's your bag.

They have the lowest CO2 output of almost any car and little else comes out of the pipe. They are not built for speed merchants but for comfortable driving and I cannot understand why so many people look down their noses at them. As the saying goes "one day all cars will be made this way". On the other hand, diesel exhausts kill people.

Ski Kid 18 April 2018

I will ask the question again on the 27mpg

It is not my car, so do  I do not have all the stats , I will ask my friend again ,it was only a few weeks old ,when I asked what mpg was being achieved, in the bad weather ,it perhaps is not at its best. So do hope that the lexus hybrids are much improved.

A88A 17 April 2018

This survey doesn’t prove anything

apart from, of those surveyed, 130 people said they may buy a hybrid for their next car, wow, that’s remarkably none news. If you were to take into consideration the new real world economy and emissions test, a lot of people will scoff at what petrol and hybrids are really not capable in real world use. 

Virtually all the diesel cars I’ve had in the last 10 years, have been capable of beating the current dodgy lab economy results, with a bit of careful driving. Most petrols ive driven, particularly the turbo charge ones, are not good, unless driven off boost, which is not fun and very slow.

hybrids are just too exspensive, great for city driving, but the as soon as the engine starts it all goes downhill from there and pure electric are laughable, bmw i3, £40k and range in the winter is rubbish. There’s not a lot wrong with a Euro 6 diesel, if everyone switches to electric, we’ll need another 10 nuclear power stations, if everyone replaces their diesels with turbo charged petrols, green house gasses will be the big issue once again.

ofcourse, if mankind is so concerned about the environment, how about it does something to reduce the world population, instead of using up all the worlds resourses at an alarming rate, how long can it go on before there’s nothing left. Mind you, governments have to find an excuse to tax us for something, as it’s all our faults.

peetee 17 April 2018

“ There’s not a lot wrong

 There’s not a lot wrong with a Euro 6 diesel,”

The world has moved on and the fact is Euro 6 has been overtaken by Euro 6D temp  and sadly only few manufacturers, contrary to Autocars and the SMMT’ s view, are able to satisfy the requirement.  Check out Mercedes, BMW and VWs latest diesel engines among a few others,

Revenge of the Prius 17 April 2018

Prius beats diesel Golf in avg mpg

According to user-reported real-world data from spritmonitor, the current Prius hybrid averages 4.49l/100 km while diesel Golfs (since 2016, under 116PS) average 5.56.  Prius needs no new power stations or other infrastructure. ADAC ecotests since Sept 2016 show that most Euro6 diesels still emit excessive NOx in WLTP-based tests while Toyota hybrids pass all emissions limits with flying colours and have very low CO2 emissions.  Prius long-term reliability is Exceptional according to dashboard-light stats on power-train problems in over 1.6M US trade-ins.  Volkswagen scores very low.

https://www.spritmonitor.de/en/overview/49-Toyota/439-Prius.html?constyear_s=2016&constyear_e=2018&powerunit=2

https://www.spritmonitor.de/en/overview/50-Volkswagen/452-Golf.html?fueltype=1&constyear_s=2016&constyear_e=2018&power_s=50&power_e=116&powerunit=2

https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/tests/eco-test/detail.aspx?IDMess=3956&info=Toyota+Prius+1.8+Hybrid+Executive

http://www.dashboard-light.com/vehicles/Toyota_Prius.html