The June SMMT figures landed this month and they are worth talking about, not because everything is rosy, but because the picture is genuinely complicated. The market is growing, EVs are taking record shares, a Chinese brand you probably had not heard of two years ago is now the third best-selling car in Britain, and yet the government’s EV targets are still miles off. Here is the honest version. Saying that, a Chinese brand I thought was a joke has a BYD on my drive! 😀
Tesla Topped June. But the ZEV Mandate Is Still a Problem
The headline from June’s SMMT data is that the Tesla Model Y was the UK’s best-selling car with 6,765 registrations. The Model 3 came second with 5,408. The Ford Puma, which has sat at the top of the annual charts for three years running, dropped to third for the month.
Total registrations for June were 213,166 vehicles, up 11.4% on June 2025. The best June since 2019. EVs took a record 30% market share for the month, with more than half of all new cars registered in June being some form of electrified vehicle.
So far so positive. But here is the uncomfortable bit. Battery electric vehicles have accounted for 25% of all new car registrations in the first half of 2026. The government’s ZEV mandate requires 33% for the full year. To hit that annual target, EVs would need to take more than 40% of registrations for every remaining month of 2026. Mike Hawes at the SMMT put it diplomatically: even record EV levels are still not enough to meet mandated targets. That gap is why manufacturers are still heavily discounting electric cars to move the numbers. If you are shopping for a new EV right now, the leverage is firmly on your side.
Jaecoo 7: The Car You Have Probably Started Seeing Everywhere
If you have noticed a sharp-looking SUV that vaguely resembles a Range Rover Velar at a fraction of the price and wondered what it is, it is almost certainly a Jaecoo 7. And it is absolutely everywhere right now. It’s like a dry robe with 4 wheels 😀
The Jaecoo 7 is the third best-selling car in the UK for the year to date according to SMMT data. In March alone, 10,064 of them were registered, making it the UK’s best-selling car for that month and outselling its closest competitor by 70%. It has gone from unknown to one of the most searched car brands in the country in under two years.
The Jaecoo 7 is built by Chery, one of China’s biggest manufacturers, and it does not lead with full electric. The petrol version starts at £29,105 and the plug-in hybrid SHS-P at £35,175, with a seven-year warranty that does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of buyer confidence. The plug-in hybrid version accounts for 85% of all Jaecoo 7 sales, which tells you something about what UK buyers actually want right now.
I have not driven one yet. What I will say is that Carwow named Jaecoo their Brand of the Year in their 2026 awards, and the Driver Power owner satisfaction data for Chinese brands as a whole is not yet flattering — MG and BYD ranked last and second-to-last in 2025. Jaecoo has not appeared in the survey yet. That seven-year warranty exists for a reason, and it will be interesting to see what the long-term ownership experience looks like once enough miles accumulate.
What the Jaecoo 7 numbers do tell you is that the UK buying public is increasingly comfortable spending real money on a brand it knew nothing about two years ago, if the value proposition is strong enough. That is a significant shift.
BYD Hits 100,000 UK Registrations
I have spent a lot of time in BYD cars this year — the Sealion 5 DM-i, the Atto 2, the Atto 3 Evo – so the 100,000 UK registrations milestone announced this week does not surprise me. The quality is there. The efficiency numbers are real. The interior fit and finish has no business being as good as it is at the price.
What is interesting is the competitive context. BYD had the Chinese newcomer market largely to itself in 2023 and 2024. Now Jaecoo is third in the annual charts. Omoda, Leapmotor, XPeng, AION — the field is filling up fast. BYD’s response is to flood the market with new models. The Shark pick-up, the Ti 7 seven-seat plug-in hybrid at £47,995 from January 2027, the premium Denza sub-brand arriving later this year. Ten models is becoming fifteen, then twenty.
Whether that breadth helps or risks diluting the brand before it has fully established itself is a genuine question. For now the numbers speak for themselves. Over a third of those 100,000 registrations — 37,995 vehicles — came in the first half of 2026 alone. The growth is accelerating.
BYD Dolphin G DM-i: The Cheapest PHEV in the UK, With Caveats
BYD confirmed UK pricing for the Dolphin G DM-i this month. Starting from £23,990, it is the first plug-in hybrid in the supermini segment and the cheapest PHEV on sale in the UK. That headline is accurate and it will shift some metal.
But read the small print before you get too excited about the entry price. The £23,990 Active model has a 7.4kWh battery giving 24.8 miles of electric range, and it charges at 3.3kW. At home on a 7kW wallbox that is still over two hours for a full charge, and 24.8 miles is not going to eliminate many petrol fill-ups for most drivers. The MG3 Hybrid+ does similar real-world electric range for significantly less money, and without requiring any charging infrastructure at all.
To get the genuinely useful version you need the Boost at £26,990. That gives you an 18.3kWh battery, 65 miles of electric range, 6.6kW AC charging and 39kW DC fast charging. Under three hours on a home wallbox from flat, or 26 minutes from 10 to 80% on a fast charger. At that point the case is much stronger.
It competes against the Renault Clio hybrid, Vauxhall Corsa and Toyota Yaris at the lower end of the price range. None of them offer plug-in hybrid technology. The Dolphin G DM-i Boost at £26,990 undercuts everything comparable in its segment by a meaningful margin. September deliveries. I will be keeping an eye on real-world efficiency results when they start coming in.
Used EVs Are Now the Fastest-Selling Cars in the UK
AutoTrader published data this month showing that for the first time since they started tracking the rankings, not a single petrol or diesel car appeared in the top ten fastest-selling used vehicles. All ten were electric or hybrid. Eight were fully electric.
The MG ZS Petrol Hybrid — note, not a pure EV — topped the list at 13 days. Three-to-five year old EVs are clearing in 20 days on average compared to 28 days for petrol equivalents. Used EV prices rose 1.6% year on year to an average of £24,662. First annual increase since December 2022.
The fuel price context matters. With petrol above 155p per litre and the Middle East situation keeping oil prices elevated, buyers are doing the maths on running costs. The maths is not complicated, and we ran it in detail here. A three to five year old Tesla Model 3 or VW ID.3 at around £24,000 on a smart overnight tariff costs a fraction of the per-mile fuel cost of an equivalent petrol car.
AutoTrader’s Marc Palmer made a point worth noting. He said past fuel price spikes have created short-term EV interest surges that faded. What feels different this time is that the demand is being sustained beyond the initial reaction. That is significant if it holds through the autumn.
If you have been sitting on the fence about a used EV, the combination of stabilising prices, genuinely fast availability and high fuel costs makes the case about as compelling as it has ever been. Our used EV buying guide is worth a read before you start looking.
That is July done. Busy month. The SMMT data is the most important story — strong market, record EV share, still miles off the mandate target. The Jaecoo 7 numbers are extraordinary. And the used EV data is the one that will matter most for most people reading this.
What are you driving at the moment and have you considered making the switch? Let us know in the comments.
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