Ford Puma is UK's best-selling car once again and Brits prove their love for petrol power
More than 2,000,000 new cars were sold in the UK last year – the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic
The Ford Puma was the UK’s best-selling car in 2025, according to new data released by the SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders), making it three years on the trot that the small SUV has topped the sales chart.
In total, 55,487 new Ford Pumas were sold last year – up from 48,340 in 2024. It certainly will have helped that an all-electric version of the Ford – the Puma Gen-E – arrived in showrooms last year, as demand for EVs continued to rise in 2025.
The Kia Sportage had a good innings, but came in second to the Ford once again, with 47,788 sold. Similarly, the British-built Nissan Qashqai took third place in the rankings again, with 41,140 examples finding new homes.
Meanwhile, the Vauxhall Corsa, which failed to crack the top 10 best-sellers list in 2024, made quite the comeback by claiming fourth place, with 35,497 models leaving showrooms last year. The Nissan Juke wasn’t far behind in fifth, with 34,773 sold.
The Tesla Model Y was the fifth most popular car in the UK in 2024, however, it didn’t make it onto the top 10 list this time around as sales dropped by more than 8,500 units year-on-year. Nevertheless, with 24,298 examples sold, it remained the most popular EV in the UK, followed by the Tesla Model 3 in second and the Audi Q4 e-tron in third.
In total, 2,020,373 new cars were registered in 2025. This is the first time sales reached such levels since the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2019, and represents a 3.5 per cent increase on the year before. Some 1.19 million cars – or roughly six out of every 10 – went to fleets, while 779,524 were private sales, which was a 4.5 per cent increase.
Despite sales of petrol cars dropping by eight per cent last year, it remained the preferred choice among Brits, accounting for more than 46 per cent of the total market share. Electric cars were second (23.4 per cent), followed by full hybrids (13.9 per cent), plug-in hybrids (11.1per cent) and finally diesels (5.1 per cent).
Unsurprisingly, the biggest decline was in sales of diesels, which dropped by nearly 16 per cent, whereas sales of plug-in hybrids shot up by 34.7 per cent compared with 2024.
Meanwhile, 473,340 new electric cars were registered in 2025. That’s more than in the whole of 2021 and 2022 combined, and means they accounted for almost one-in-four cars sold in the UK last year, potentially making it the second biggest market for EVs in Europe. That said, sales failed to reach the 28 per cent target set by the Government as part of its ZEV Mandate.
Britain’s top-selling cars 2025
(based on preliminary SMMT data)
- Ford Puma - 55,487
- Kia Sportage - 47,788
- Nissan Qashqai - 41,140
- Vauxhall Corsa - 35,947
- Nissan Juke - 34,773
- Volkswagen Golf - 32,477
- Volvo XC40 - 30,404
- MG HS - 30,191
- Volkswagen Tiguan - 29,856
- Hyundai Tucson - 28,613
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