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.