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September Broke the Records: a 12% Market and a Chinese Best-Seller
Preliminary figures show 350,518 new cars registered in September, the best month since 2017, with battery electric cars at a record 28.3% share.
The 76-plate month has delivered. Preliminary figures published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) on Friday show 350,518 new cars registered in September, up 12.1% on the same month last year, the strongest September since 2017. The month carried a fair bit of weight: the plate change is one of the year's most important, and this month typically accounts for around one in seven of the year's registrations. This year's edition also produced a genuine shock at the top of the sales chart, where the best-selling car in Britain is now a Chinese petrol and plug-in hybrid SUV.
We looked at what the month needed to prove in our one-month report on the new plate, written while the data was still outstanding. The three questions we flagged then, volume, share at full plate-change volume, and the private-versus-fleet split, now have first answers. They will be refined when the SMMT publishes final figures on Monday, but the shape of the story is already clear.
A record month by every measure that matters
The headline growth was broad. Fleet registrations rose 9.6% to 190,998 units, private demand increased 13.9% to 149,166 units, and the smaller business sector grew 37.3% to 10,372 units, all per the SMMT's preliminary data. When every category of buyer grows in a plate month, that is real demand rather than a fleet accounting effect.
The electric story is the one that will frame the rest of the year. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) climbed 36.3% to a record 99,199 units, taking 28.3% of the market, up five percentage points on September 2025's 23.3%. Plug-in hybrids had their strongest month on record, hybrids dipped 4.2%, and petrol fell 6.7%, with diesel, a small slice of the market it once dominated, also growing. The breadth of the shift is the notable part: this was not one powertrain gaining while the rest stood still, it was the whole top of the market moving at once.
Behind the headline share sits a choice story. The SMMT credits the surge to unprecedented model choice, especially in the smaller segments, alongside compelling discounts and the government's Electric Car Grant. That expanded line-up is what converted interest into 99,199 registrations in a single month. For scale, the last September to beat this one, in 2017, saw 426,170 registrations in a market with a fraction of today's electric choice.
A Chinese car tops the chart
The other record is the one nobody would have predicted five years ago. The best-selling car in Britain in September was the Jaecoo 7, the SUV from Chery, with 10,813 registrations in the preliminary data. The Tesla Model 3 was second on 9,929 and the Ford Puma third on 6,958, with the Tesla Model Y fifth on 5,946, according to the SMMT's preliminary table. The Jaecoo 7 is a petrol and plug-in hybrid SUV built by Chery, a state-owned Chinese carmaker now in its second year of full-scale UK sales, and this is the second time in 2026 it has topped the monthly chart.
For context on the year so far, the Puma still leads the 2026 table on 42,926 registrations with the Jaecoo 7 second on 39,474, so September did not change the annual running order. What it changed is the perception of what a plate-change month's best-seller can look like. A car from a brand that barely existed in the UK two years ago outselling the Puma, the Model 3 and the Sportage in the biggest sales month of the year is the clearest possible sign of how the market's shape is moving.
The openness that made it possible has been argued about all year, and we looked at both sides of the tariff question in our piece on the trade debate. What September's chart suggests is that, whatever the policy argument settles on, buyers have already voted with their feet at the plate-change window, where volume discounts and fresh-metal appeal are at their strongest.
The mandate gap is still open
One strong month does not close the year's arithmetic. Battery electric cars were 26.2% of registrations for the first nine months of 2026, well below the 33% mandated for the year and behind even last year's 28% target. September helped, but the gap the ZEV mandate review is wrestling with is still open, and we will pick through what the final numbers mean for the mandate in a separate piece.
Mike Hawes, the SMMT's chief executive, welcomed the record while pointing at the same tension. High fuel prices are "undoubtedly giving more consumers reason to consider going electric", he said, alongside greater model choice and manufacturer incentives. Both halves of that sentence are true at once, and they are the honest summary of where the market stands: record demand, still not enough.
What to watch on Monday
Preliminary figures are subject to change, and the SMMT publishes final numbers on Monday 5 October. The headline may wobble by a few dozen units either way. The story will not: a 12% market, a 28.3% electric share, and a Chinese best-seller are not rounding errors. If fuel prices stay where they are, the pressure they put on running-cost maths, which we looked at in our piece on diesel reaching two pounds a litre, only adds to the momentum.