What is the UK’s most common car?

Everywhere we look in the news at the moment, there are fears over the cost-of-living crisis.

The inflation rate in the UK remained high in February 2023 (10.4%), with food prices at a 45-year high, and interest rates bumped up to 4.25 percent.

Despite the squeeze on our wallets, the data suggests that people in the UK are still on the lookout for new cars.

Biggest car brands in the UK

According to motorway.co.uk, there were 39.2 million licensed vehicles on the roads of Great Britain in 2021 – ranging from the old-school petrol and diesel models to new electric vehicles.

Data from the DVLA in 2020 showed that Ford cars accounted for the highest number of these vehicles at 4.16 million, followed closely by Vauxhall cars at 3.16 million.

Volkswagen (2.87 million), BMW (1.94 million) and Audi (1.79 million) rounded out the top five in terms of car brands on British roads.

UK’s most popular car models

The global health pandemic struck in 2020 but consumers were typically still on the lookout for new cars.

Indeed, in 2021 DVLA data showed 2.3 million new car registrations – an increase of 5% on the previous year.

For that same year, the Vauxhall Corsa was the most popularly registered model on UK roads with 2.48 million.

The Volkswagen Golf was next on the list at 2.02 million, while the Ford Fiesta – for so long top of the pile – was down in third at 1.98 million.

The Ford Puma (1.94 million) and Toyota Yaris (1.84 million) finished the top five.

Rise of EVs

The future of UK roads is set to look vastly different in the near future, with a focus on net-zero carbon emissions and doing our part to combat the threat of climate change leading to a surge in electric vehicle (EVs) purchases.

Indeed, EVs are set to take over the market in the coming years, with Tesla enjoying its best year for UK sales in 2021.

There were more battery electric vehicle sales in 2021 than there were in the five previous years combined – 190,727 registrations, representing 11.6 of all new car sales. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles accounted for an additional 7 per cent of sales (114,554 cars registered).

In total, that meant 18.5 per cent of newly registered cars in 2021 could be plugged in.

Changes to car ownership landscape

The automobile world has drastically changed the world, and now it is estimated 83% of UK homeowners own at least two cars. For comparison, in the 1980s only 15% of households owned any car.

Nowadays, with the threat of CO2 emissions, the landscape is changing and there has been a 22% increase in the use of alternative fuel cares compared to 2018 numbers.

While the type of vehicle we drive is changing, so too is the type of ownership of vehicles with a big rise in pay-as-you-go services.

With the potential for vehicles to be hired for as low as £5 per hour, this type of motoring could see a big change in vehicle ownership.