Dieselgate Is Finally Causing A Huge Drop In Diesel Car Sales
All the doom-mongering around diesels seems to be taking effect at last, with new figures revealing a year-on-year drop of more than 20,000 sales in a single month.
The UK-only figures, supplied by the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), paint an ugly picture for May. The same month last year saw 101,844 diesel cars sold, but this year it’s just 81,489. Now that UK councils are jumping on the punitive measures bandwagon as well, Dieselgate is finally having a tangible effect on the market. The Volkswagen Group is already taking huge steps to move away from diesel in the wake of its rule-breaking.
This may be a bit boring, but we like to keep you posted on today’s developments that will affect the cars you’ll buy tomorrow. At the moment, it looks like diesel is seriously falling out of favour, although since petrol car sales haven’t jumped massively, it seems people may just be refraining from trading-in their old derves until they know whether there’s going to be a new scrappage scheme. Petrol sales are up by a gnat’s wing, with 96,518 cars marking a 0.4 per cent boost versus last May.
It’s also bad news for the industry as far as private buyers are concerned, with a 14 per cent fall in May 2017 versus May 2016. That makes 12,500 fewer cars sold as people hang on to their money until it becomes clear which way this whole thing goes.
Comments
As an American i am happy as for we still have trucks
Darn tootin 🇨🇦
F*ck you government. Diesel is a better fuel. I’m going to own and drive diesels until the day I die.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/60/59/0e/60590e723c4d4cf71bb71e94157a83f7.gif
One reason why the numbers haven’t dropped until now is that a lod of cars, like the new Skoda Superb for example have no comparable petrol option, so if people had their heart set on that car, they probably still bought it with the diesel
My dad’s daily is a 2.2 Accord diesel, which he saved for for what feels like an age, only to see their prices flopping and an oil burner crackdown in the works. He’s still going to keep it (says it’s the best all rounder he’s owned) but it’s a little disheartening seeing these recent events
How is the world supposed to turn now?
my only issue with buying a petrol car in the UK is petrol basically costs the same as diesel. So if i get a petrol i get half as many miles for the same money at less i buy a boring little economy box. Which would be useless for my purposes and the distances i drive. i easily clock up 1500 miles a month which at the moment costs me no more than £200 and if i swap to petrol i will be lucky if it costs me less than £400 a month just in fuel.
Laughs in Canadian
Why dont we think about it like this : the reason that Petrol cars are becoming so popular is because they are increasingly getting more efficient and economical to run :-)
Do you like soot in your lungs? Because that is what that motor is doing to everyone around it. But hey, as long as it gets the same mileage as a fricking Kia or something.
Thank you US auto industry funded research of diesel VWs that lead to this point. Love the torque of a diesel but really not worth the tradeoff of pollution compared to freerevving petrol car, especially since most new ones are turboed anyway so you get similar torque as diesels.