UK EVs At 34.6% Share In 2025 - Tesla Model Y Best-Seller

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December saw plugin EVs at 43.8% share in the UK, up from 40.0% year on year, with BEVs alone taking 32.2% share. Full year 2025 saw EVs at 34.6% share, up from 28.1% in 2024. Overall December auto volume was 146,249 up some 4% YoY. Full year 2025 auto volume was 2,020,523 units, up some 3% from 2024. The Tesla Model Y was the best-selling BEV in December, and for full year 2025.

EVs at 34.6% share

December’s auto sales saw combined plugin EVs take 43.8% share in the UK, with full battery-electrics (BEVs) at 32.2% and plugin hybrids (PHEVs) at 11.6%. These shares compare YoY against 40.0% combined, 31.0% BEV, and 9.0% PHEV.

Full year 2025 plugin share was 34.6%, with BEV at 23.4% and PHEVs at 11.1%. This is up from 28.1% combined in 2024, with 19.6% BEVs and 8.6% PHEVs.

The UK’s ZEV mandate continues to function as designed. The 2025 headline target of “28%” has – once various loopholes and “flexibilities” are taken into account – been met by pretty much all manufacturers, perhaps with a bit of emissions credit trading between manufacturing groups. This continues the success of last year’s target of “22%” (which was covered by the 19.6% BEV result).

The ZEV headline target for 2026 now steps up to “33%”, and then to “38%” and “52%” in 2027 and 2028. With the loopholes, this will mean the average manufacturer aiming for roughly 28% BEV share this year, and 32% next year. Both of these are easily achievable, but will doubtless be accompanied by much whining and complaining from some of the legacy auto brands.

Best-Selling BEV Brands

In December, Tesla was the best-selling BEV brand, with 14.0% share of the UK BEV market. BYD made a big push to end up in second place (10.2% share), and Ford came third (9.9% share).

In the final quarter of 2025, Ford took the top spot, with 8.9% share – mainly pushing to ensure they met the ZEV mandate and avoided fines and overspending on ZEV credits. Tesla came in second with 8.7% share, and BYD was third with 8.1% share.

Across the full year of 2025, Tesla was the leading BEV brand, with 9.4% market share with Volkswagen brand in second (7.7% share) and Ford in third (7.1% share).

For Tesla, 2025’s 9.4% share was a significant fall from 2024’s 13.4%. The biggest climber in market share was BYD, which went from just 2.1% share in 2025, to 5.8% in 2025. This is still well below BYD’s global average 2025 BEV market share 16.6%, so we can expect the company’s UK share to keep climbing in 2026.

Outlook

The ZEV mandate, plus a reintroduction of modest Government purchase incentives for BEVs, mean that the UK is likely to continue a decent BEV growth trajectory in 2026. We can expect the good value Chinese brands (BYD, MG, Omoda, Jaecoo, etc) to continue to grab market share from the legacy laggards.

What are your thoughts on the UK’s EV transition in 2025, and the prospects for 2026? Please jump in to the comments section below and join our discussion.

Note: I’ll be moving from a monthly to a quarterly schedule for our European EV market reports this year. This is partly because change in European EV markets is now rather slow and counter-revolutionary. This seems to have been agreed upon by the political and capitalist elites in Europe, which benefits the latter by ICE rent-seeking from us consumers. The move to quarterly reporting is also partly because I have university commitments which unfortunately leave me little spare time for more frequent reporting. My apologies for this, and I thank you for your understanding.

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