Rejuvenated new car market continues to grow as SMMT revises forecast

• 172,907 new cars registered in July, a rise of 6.6% and the 29^th consecutive month of growth.
• Economic confidence and attractive finance have driven the market up 10.1% year-to-date to 1,460,172 units.
• Faster-than-expected first half-year growth prompts upward revision of 2014 market forecast to 2.45 million registrations, up 8.1% on 2013.

Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive, said, “July saw the new car market extend its record period of growth to a 29^th month, as confident consumers took advantage of an array of new products and attractive finance deals on the latest fuel-efficient new cars.

“The continued positivity has led to an uplift in the SMMT full year forecast to 2.45 million passenger car registrations, a rise of 8.1%. However, the more moderate growth of the last three months shows that overall demand is beginning to stabilise.”

UK new car registrations 2007 2013 (full-years) and SMMT 2014 forecast

How consumers are already taking up driverless technologies

(data from JATO Dynamics)

• Last week government announced a £10 million competition for UK cities to host driverless car trials, which could see fully autonomous vehicles take to the streets from January 2015. While fully autonomous vehicles are still some years from the market, a number of technologies these will use are already finding their way into new cars.
• Adaptive cruise control, which uses radar to maintain a consistent, safe distance from the car in front, was either standard or optional on 18% of new cars registered in 2013, compared with just 9% in 2010. Availability of collision warning systems, which also use radar technology, jumped from just 7% of new cars in 2010 to more than a third of last year’s market.
• Awareness of surroundings is key to driverless motoring. Almost a quarter of new cars in 2013 were available with blind spot monitoring – up from 4% in 2010 – while more than one in 10 featured self-parking as standard or as an option.

Click through to download the full July 2014 new car registrations news release and data table.