Where are the engines in the 74s?

[Bald Rick]

So here we are again, a month into the new registrations - 74 plate this time - and I have yet to see a 74 plate car with an engine. I must have now seen around 50 x 74 plate cars, and they are all EVs. This isn’t just a ‘home counties’ thing, I’ve been all over the country this month: London, South East, West Mids, East Mids, North West, Yorkshire and Scotland.

I have seen only one 74 plate with an engine, a large camper van / RV in Argyll - in fact that was the very first 74 plate I saw. But nothing with an engine sincem and no cars with an engine at all.

Some of you might remember I started a similar thread with the 73 plates last year, but that was about hardly seeing any 73 plates at all (albeit most I did see were EVs too).

Is it just me? Statistically, it seems improbable unless there has been a big boost in the sales of EVs / decline in ICEs.


Sorry if I have tricked some of you again into thinking this is a thread about Southern Region electro-diesels

 

[ABB125]

I spotted a 74 earlier today (first one I recall, although I must have seen others but not paid attention). It was parked in a Sainsbury's car park, plugged in to a charging bay...
I then saw another later in the evening. I don't think it was electric - no green stripe on the number plate - but it was only a fleeting glance.

This is in a south Birmingham suburb known for its large student population

 

[Snow1964]

Just tried auto trader and filtered it by new cars
20,734 cars currently listed of which

17,049 are automatic and only 3679 are manual gearboxes
7293 petrol, 6404 hybrid, 4357 electric, 2629 diesel, 4 bi-fuel


I think EU wants 22% of cars to be electric, otherwise there are penalties.

I wonder if there has been a rush to register EVs before the China import tariff increases

 

[Sun Chariot]

Does this ICE count?

 

[Bald Rick]

I think EU wants 22% of cars to be electric, otherwise there are penalties.

Nothing to do with the EU. It is UK Government policy.

It is that 22% of car sales for each manufacturer (selling more than 1000 cars) in GB to be EVs in 2024 (more strictly, ZEV). It lifts to 28% in 2025. The quota is tradeable; for example Tesla only make EVs, so can sell 78% of their quota to any other manufacturer who wants to buy it.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Sorry if I have tricked some of you again into thinking this is a thread about Southern Region electro-diesels

You had me at least! Between the cabs but not exactly in the middle I think.

 

[JamesT]

So here we are again, a month into the new registrations - 74 plate this time - and I have yet to see a 74 plate car with an engine. I must have now seen around 50 x 74 plate cars, and they are all EVs. This isn’t just a ‘home counties’ thing, I’ve been all over the country this month: London, South East, West Mids, East Mids, North West, Yorkshire and Scotland.

I have seen only one 74 plate with an engine, a large camper van / RV in Argyll - in fact that was the very first 74 plate I saw. But nothing with an engine sincem and no cars with an engine at all.

Some of you might remember I started a similar thread with the 73 plates last year, but that was about hardly seeing any 73 plates at all (albeit most I did see were EVs too).

Is it just me? Statistically, it seems improbable unless there has been a big boost in the sales of EVs / decline in ICEs.

I think it must be just you. https://www.zap-map.com/ev-stats/ev-market says

In August 2024, 19,113 new electric cars were sold, which was 22.6% of all new car registrations. Over the past 12 months the average number of new electric cars registered each month is around 28,000.

It also has some graphs which show EV marketshare never getting above 25% over the last year.

So I think we can safely conclude that your 50 sightings were not a representative sample.

 

[Bald Rick]

I think it must be just you. https://www.zap-map.com/ev-stats/ev-market says

It also has some graphs which show EV marketshare never getting above 25% over the last year.

So I think we can safely conclude that your 50 sightings were not a representative sample.

Ah, but that is registrations in August, ie with a 24 plate. I see plenty of 24s with engines.

This is about those registered after 1 Sept, that have been sold, and are on the road.

(super pedantically, registration doesn’t necessarily mean a sale, and it definitley doesn’t mean it will be on the road )

 

[JamesT]

Ah, but that is registrations in August, ie with a 24 plate. I see plenty of 24s with engines.

This is about those registered after 1 Sept, that have been sold, and are on the road.

(super pedantically, registration doesn’t necessarily mean a sale, and it definitley doesn’t mean it will be on the road )

I’m aware that the stats on that page haven’t caught up to cover last month yet.
But there are some clear trends that would have to have completely flipped for what you saw to be representative.

 

[JohnMcL7]

I've seen a few 74 plate cars although all petrol or diesel SUVs so far.

 

[renegademaster]

Lots of vans and lorries seem to be quite new, mabye to do with ULEZ and like

 

[AndrewP]

If I had to nominate the most common 74 plates I have seen it is ICE Range Rover Sports and Minis

 

[BananaRepublic]

New car registrations in the UK for September 2024 (on the new 74 plate).
source - SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders)

BEV (full electric) = 56,387 (up 24.4% on Sep 23) - 20.5% share of the total market for September.

HEV (Hybrid) = 39,017 (up 2.6% on Sep 23) - 14.2% market share
PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid) =24,486 (up 32.1% on Sep 23) - 8.9% market share

Petrol = 137,793 (down 9.3% on Sep 23) - 50.1% market share
Diesel = 17,556 (down 7.1% on Sep 23) - 6.4% market share


.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Oct 2024 ==

......It also has some graphs which show EV marketshare never getting above 25% over the last year.......

EV (pure EV, i.e. BEV) market share of new car registrations (UK), has been growing month on month, but as you say, has not reached 25% market share in any month over the last year.

There are now more than 1.25 million pure EV's on UK roads (that doesn't include light commercial EV vans etc.).

So far, in the first 9 months of this year (Jan-Sep), 269,931 new BEV's were registered, representing 17.8% of the total UK market for passenger cars.

Monthly figures 2024 - number of BEV's & market share.....
(Feb & Aug are traditionally low for all powertrain types, due to the introduction of a new registration plate in Mar & Sep)

Jan - 20,935 - 14.7%
Feb - 14,991 - 17.7%
Mar - 48,388 - 15.2%
Apr - 22,717 - 16.9%
May - 26,031 - 17.6%
Jun - 34,034 - 19.0%
Jul - 27,335 - 18.5%
Aug - 19,113 - 22.5%
Sep - 56,387 - 20.5%




.

 

[Bald Rick]

Well it happened today, 48 days in, I saw my first 74 plate car with an engine. An Audi A1 - to be fair I didn‘t know Audi still made them.

In that time I must now have seen 2-300 74 plate cars that are EVs.

Conclusion? I live in an EV bubble. But I think I knew that already.

 

[GusB]

I don't think I've seen any 74-plate cars yet. Locally, most new cars have been on 24-plates; even then, they didn't all appear in March.

Wasn't the whole idea of going to six-monthly registrations supposed to remove the "boom and bust" and spread car sales across the whole year?

 

[Bald Rick]

I don't think I've seen any 74-plate cars yet. Locally, most new cars have been on 24-plates; even then, they didn't all appear in March.

Wasn't the whole idea of going to six-monthly registrations supposed to remove the "boom and bust" and spread car sales across the whole year?

I assumed new cars appear evenly through the period of the plate’s validity… until I checked the official figures from the SMMT via this link (data below). https://www.smmt.co.uk/category/news/registrations/

The monthly figures for new car registrations this year have been (in thousands):

Jan 143
Feb 85
Mar 318
Apr 134
May 148
Jun 179
Jul 148
Aug 85
Sep 275

You can see that almost a third of cars with a 24 plate were registered in March alone (318 of the total 1012 for March to August). Assuming a similar rate of registrations for the 74 plate, we should have over 40% of all the 74 plate cars registered by now.

As ever, being registered doesn’t mean it is sold or on the road.