Diesel sales boost May registrations

Diesel registrations continued their upward spiral this year, with May’s new car sales figures reaching their highest ever market share.

Figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders show that around 74,000 diesel cars were sold in May – representing nearly 40% of the new car market.

In fleet, all the top 10 best-selling diesel models, with the exception of the Renault Megane, saw sales grow.

Audi’s A4 continued its stellar rise with growth of 42.6% for the year to date, followed by BMW which saw 3 Series registrations rise by 22.6%.

Of the volume manufacturers, Ford, Volkswagen and Vauxhall all saw steady growth with their models, but the biggest gain was made by Citroën. Thanks to the launch of the five and seven-seat C4 Picasso MPVs, the C4 family saw diesel registrations rocket to 3,757 units – up from 1,400 sales for the year to date in 2006.

The rise in diesel sales helped offset a pretty poor month for new car registrations – this was the lowest level of sales in May since 1999 and curtailed a run of two months of growth.

May’s volume of 185,797 sales was 2.2% down on last year, although year-to-date sales at 1,044,436 are 2.2% ahead of the same period in 2006. Fleet accounted for 506,379 of these sales, and business sales to fleets with 25 vehicle or fewer accounted for 67,786 sales.

In the fleet top 10, Ford’s Focus remains at number one with Vauxhall’s Astra in second. Volkswagen enjoyed the largest growth with Golf sales rising by 15.9% YTD thanks to the launch of the TSI Twincharger models.

Top 10 fleet models

	YTD 2007	YTD 2006	% change



Ford Focus	44,787	45,791	-2.2



Vauxhall Astra	36,365	34,314	5.9



Ford Fiesta	19,932	19,249	3.5



Ford Mondeo	19,630	18,507	6.1



Renault Megane	16,895	17,675	-5.4



VW Golf	16,533	14,261	15.9



Vauxhall Corsa	16,269	18,507	-12.1



Vauxhall Vectra	15,250	15,306	-0.4



Vauxhall Zafira	14,959	15,126	-1.2



VW Passat	12,173	11,365	7.1