UK and CanadaUK
UK EVs took 32% of Oct 2026 registrations but are just 6.7% of dealer stock
A record BEV month meets a forecourt still 81.4% petrol and diesel.
Battery electric cars (BEVs) took 32% of UK new car registrations in Oct 2026, a record share. Electric cars make up 6.7% of what UK dealers list today, at a median asking price of £23,590 against £15,310 across all UK listings, and their listings have been live for a median of 34 days against 57 for the market.
SMMT reported on Nov 5, 2026 that UK new car registrations rose 5.4% in Oct 2026 and that BEVs reached their record share. In "Year-end push lifts EV sales but mandate gap set to widen" it also warned that the year-to-date zero-emission share remains below the 33% the ZEV Mandate requires for 2026. MarketCheck read live UK dealer-website listings on Nov 9, 2026 to see what the forecourt looks like next to that registration mix. Both figures describe the United Kingdom, though different parts of its market. One is a month of new-car registrations; the other is a live stock of new and used cars together on dealer websites. They are not like for like, and the gap between 32% and 6.7% shows how thin electric stock still is in retail relative to the new-car flow.
Petrol and diesel make up 81.4% of dealer listings
Of roughly 595,000 cars listed, petrol accounts for 51.5% and diesel for 29.9%. Together they make up 81.4% of UK dealer listings, so the volume trade on forecourts remains combustion even as the new-car flow tilts electric.
| Fuel type | Listings (Nov 09, 2026) | Share of listings (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Petrol | 306,514 | 51.5 |
| Diesel | 177,940 | 29.9 |
| Petrol Electric Hybrid | 69,515 | 11.7 |
| Electric | 39,877 | 6.7 |
| Diesel Electric Hybrid | 502 | 0.1 |
| Petrol Gas | 378 | 0.1 |
| All listings | 595,117 | 100 |
Electric cars are the fourth-largest fuel type, behind petrol, diesel and petrol hybrids, and petrol hybrids alone outnumber pure electric listings by about 1.7 to 1. The count covers active listings, new and used combined, and a car listed on more than one site can be counted more than once. A rise in the electric share from 6.7%, as Oct 2026 cars reach forecourts and lease returns arrive, would show retail supply catching up with the registration mix.
Higher asking prices and fewer days listed
A second read, on the same day and the same stock, compares electric listings with the market on price and on how long listings have been live.
| Measure | Electric listings | All UK listings |
|---|---|---|
| Median asking price (GBP) | 23,590 | 15,310 |
| 25th percentile price (GBP) | 17,446 | 9,398 |
| 75th percentile price (GBP) | 31,064 | 22,908 |
| Median days listed | 34 | 57 |
| Mean days listed | 68 | 109 |
| 90th percentile days listed | 153 | 247 |
On asking prices, quoted in pounds, electric listings are higher at every point of the distribution. Their median of £23,590 is about 54% above the market's £15,310, a difference of £8,280. The listing data does not separate vehicle age, and the UK electric fleet is younger than the combustion fleet, so age and mix sit inside that gap. Reading electric asking prices by age band is the only way to separate the age effect from the powertrain effect in it.
Electric listings have also been live for less time at the median, the mean and the 90th percentile. Their median of 34 days is about 40% shorter than the 57 days for all UK listings. Days listed count the time each current listing has been live, which is a different thing from the time a car takes to sell, so the comparison describes how long today's listings have been up and says nothing about how quickly they turn. A move in the electric median up toward the market's 57 days would say electric listings are sitting live for longer.
Two months left to reach 33%
SMMT puts the year-to-date zero-emission share at 25.6% against the 33% ZEV Mandate target for 2026, with two months of the year left, and that gap is the open question in its story. The Nov 2026 and Dec 2026 registration shares will be read against the target and against the Oct 2026 record of 32%. The 25.6% comes from the SMMT story; the listing data is not its source.
How this was measured
These are active UK dealer-website listings on Nov 9, 2026, new and used combined, with duplicates across sites possible. Prices are asking prices in pounds and days are the time each current listing has been live. Registration figures are SMMT's and are not tested by listing data. MarketCheck data does not separate new cars from used cars in UK listings, so both tables cover all dealer stock.
The fuel-type counts came from the Inventory Search API, GET /v2/search/car/active (Inventory Search API docs), with fuel-type facets, and the price and days-listed statistics came from the same API with price and days-on-market statistics requested. The Take also used the MarketCheck Sold Summary API (the get_sold_summary tool in the MarketCheck MCP; docs Sold Summary tool). The data source is MarketCheck data, live UK inventory. API keys: MarketCheck developer portal.
The story we checked
"UK New Car Market Grows in October, Driven by EV Sales, But SMMT Warns on ZEV Mandate Gap", SMMT, Nov 5, 2026. Fact-check tally: 4 verified, 1 unverifiable. Verified: registrations grew 5.4% in Oct 2026; BEVs reached a record 32% share, with New AutoMotive putting it at 31.8%; Oct 2026 was the 11th consecutive month of UK new car market growth; the ZEV Mandate requires 33% of new cars sold in 2026 to be zero emission. Unverifiable: the year-to-date zero-emission share of 25.6% and below target, for which the story is the only source.
You can run the same read in MarketCheck AI Desk: https://ai.marketcheck.com/install.
Reproduce this
- search_active_cars: Pull live UK dealer listings by fuel type to rebuild the 595,117-listing mix and the 6.7% electric share.
- search_past_90_days: Look at UK electric listings that left dealer websites in the last 90 days, at their last asking price.
- generate_full_market_capture: Read every listing in one postcode market to see how local electric supply compares with the national 6.7%.
The story we checkedUK New Car Market Grows in October, Driven by EV Sales, But SMMT Warns on ZEV Mandate Gap, SMMT, Nov 5, 2026
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