New car prices are up 58% in a decade while household incomes rose 2%

Two figures sit at the top of the research MG published this week, and they explain most of what follows. The median price of a new car has risen 58% in ten years, while household disposable income has grown by 2%. The research, reported by AM Online, combines a survey of 2,000 UK drivers by Opinion Matters with marketplace data from Autotrader, and MG's own announcement sets out the same pair of numbers as the frame for the whole thing.

The survey ran between 2 and 6 October 2026, before the Autumn Budget. It measures what people say they will do, which is not the same as what they buy, and MG commissioned it to support a seven-seat plug-in hybrid it sells from £34,210. Both of those facts are worth holding while reading the rest.

What buyers say they would give up

Almost nine in ten drivers, 88%, said they would rethink at least one aspect of their next car to bring it within budget. Of those, 41% said they would consider a different manufacturer, which is the finding the trade press picked up first, because it describes a market where brand loyalty can be bought with a better price.

The priorities underneath are more interesting. Purchase price was named by 61% of drivers and running costs by 56%. The manufacturer was named by 26%. Even allowing for the fact that people say price matters when asked about price, that ordering describes a market in which the badge on the bonnet has become one of the less important parts of the decision.

Attitudes to spending have hardened alongside that. Nearly half of respondents, 46%, said they would love a new car but that living costs or purchase prices make them think twice. That is a large group of people who are not refusing to buy, and are not able to buy at the prices they are being shown.

Who feels it most

The sense that cars have become less affordable is not evenly distributed. Sixty-two per cent of drivers said new cars are less affordable than they were a decade ago, and 34% went further, describing them as much less affordable.

The gap between groups is wider than the headline. Among drivers aged 55 and over, 72% said affordability had worsened. Among women, the figure was 69%, against 56% among men. Those differences matter to anyone selling cars, because they suggest the affordability argument lands hardest with buyers who are closest to a replacement decision and least willing to stretch for a badge.

The market data behind the complaint

The second half of the research looks at what is actually listed. Fifty-four per cent of new SUV stock on Autotrader is priced at £40,000 or above. At MG, 92% of new SUV stock is below that level. The £40,000 line is not arbitrary. It is the threshold for the expensive car supplement on petrol and diesel cars, which adds £440 a year for five years on top of the standard rate, as our EV road tax guide sets out. It is also the band where most seven-seat SUVs sit, which is the point MG is making.

MG's argument is that families are being pushed towards expensive cars to get seven seats. The MGS9 PHEV Comfort, its own seven-seat plug-in hybrid, is priced from £34,210 on the road, and the brand's case rests on the idea that the space families want has been bundled into cars priced well above what they can pay.

The reasons people gave for wanting a bigger car were practical rather than aspirational. More boot or storage space was named by 31%, family holidays or longer journeys by 30%, and travelling with extended family or friends by 24%.

What this says about the market

There is a version of this story that is simply about one brand marketing a new model, and the research should be read with that in mind. It is also consistent with the registration data. Buyers have kept spending, with September setting a record for the month, at the same time as the complaints about price have grown louder, and we covered that month in our piece on the plate change.

The other place the affordability pressure shows up is in the used market. Our used electric parity check found the gap between electric and petrol prices narrowing, and the same forces apply across the market: when new cars cost more, buyers hold what they have for longer, and the cars that would have been traded in stay out of the used stock.

For anyone shopping now, the useful lesson from the survey is not the one MG would like. It is that the price on the windscreen is only the first number, and that running costs, insurance groups and tax bands can move the total by more than the discount on offer. Our guide to which cars qualify for the electric car grant covers the one subsidy that changes the arithmetic directly.

What it does not tell us

The survey records stated willingness to change, not completed purchases, so it cannot say how many of the 41% will actually switch. Nor does it separate the drivers who are genuinely shopping from those answering a hypothetical question about a car they may buy in two or three years.

What it does establish is a mood, and a market where 88% of buyers are prepared to compromise on something to stay in budget is a market where the specification list matters less than the monthly payment. That is a harder market for a brand to compete in on anything other than price.