Vehicle licensing statistics: July to September 2023
Published 12 December 2023
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-licensing-statistics-july-to-september-2023/vehicle-licensing-statistics-july-to-september-2023
About this release
This release presents statistics on motor vehicles in the United Kingdom (UK), which are based on administrative data held by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).
These include:
- new vehicle registrations
- licensed vehicles
- zero emission vehicles
A range of detailed datasets are available online. Also available is a full list of definitions used in this release.
These statistics cover the whole of the United Kingdom, which is Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland. However, long term trends (over 8 years) can only be looked at for Great Britain, as the United Kingdom data are only available from July 2014.
If you have any feedback on this release, please contact vehicles statistics.
Headline figures
Latest figures for 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September), show that the number of new registrations was up 22% in the UK, with new zero emission vehicle registrations up 41%. New zero emission car registrations for 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September) increased 42% on the previous year.
Comparing 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September) with 2022 Quarter 3 (July to September):
- there were 670,000 vehicles registered for the first time in the UK, up 22% (VEH0150)
- there were 93,000 zero emission vehicles registered for the first time in the UK, up 41% (VEH1153a) This included 86,000 zero emission cars
At the end of September 2023:
-
there were 41.3 million licensed vehicles in the UK, an increase of 1.4% compared to the end of September 2022 (VEH0101a)
-
there were 942,000 licensed zero emission vehicles in the UK, an increase of 56% compared to the end of September 2022 (VEH1103a) This included 864,000 zero emission cars an increase of 58% on the previous year
-
zero emission vehicles accounted for 2.3% of all road using vehicles, compared to 1.5% at the end of September 2022
New vehicle registrations: summary
Table 1: Vehicles registered for the first time in the third quarter (July to September) by body type, United Kingdom, 2022 and 2023 (VEH0150)
| Body type | 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September): New registrations (thousands) | 2022 Quarter 3 (July to September): New registrations (thousands) | New registrations (year on year percentage change) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cars | 515 | 417 | +23.3% |
| Light goods vehicles (LGVs) | 91 | 71 | +26.7% |
| Heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) | 13 | 12 | +16.1% |
| Motorcycles | 34 | 34 | -2.5% |
| Buses and coaches | 2 | 1 | +116.7% |
| Other vehicles | 16 | 15 | +2.0% |
| Total | 670 | 551 | +21.6% |
New zero emission vehicle registrations
Zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) are a sub-set of ultra low emission vehicles, currently only including:
- battery electric vehicles (BEVs)
- fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs, sometimes referred to as hydrogen powered)
There were 86,000 zero emission cars were registered for the first time in July to September 2023, accounting for 17% of all new car registrations, this represents an increase of 42%, compared to the same quarter in 2022.
There were 5,600 zero emission light goods vehicles (LGVs) registered for the first time in July to September 2023, accounting for 6.2% of all new LGV registrations in July to September 2023, an increase of 55% in vehicle numbers, compared to the same quarter in 2022.
Table 2: Zero emission vehicles registered for the first time by body type, with previous year and total new registrations comparison, United Kingdom, 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September) (VEH1153a)
| Body type | 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September): New zero emission registrations | 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September): Proportion of all new road using vehicle registrations that are zero emission | 2022 Quarter 3 (July to September): Proportion of all new road using vehicle registrations that are zero emission |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cars | 85,564 | 16.6% | 14.5% |
| Light goods vehicles | 5,585 | 6.2% | 5.0% |
| Heavy goods vehicles | 609 | 4.8% | 2.3% |
| Motorcycles | 1,093 | 3.3% | 5.1% |
| Buses and coaches | 348 | 17.9% | 10.7% |
| Other vehicles | 13 | 1.0% | 2.5% |
| Total | 93,212 | 14.2% | 12.3% |
Heavy vans
Cars and light goods vehicles (up to and including 3.5 tonnes) can typically be driven by those with a category B driving licence. Since July 2018, people with this licence can also drive alternatively fuelled vehicles up to 4.25 tonnes (which are classified as Heavy Goods Vehicles, HGVs, those over 3.5 tonnes) with some additional training.
In order to identify this group of vehicles, the data file (df_VEH0520) provides details about the current fleet of vehicles impacted, which shows that 63% of zero emission HGVs were in this category (over 3.5 tonnes up to 4.25 tonnes) at the end of 2022.
Chart 1: Zero emission car and light goods vehicles registered for the first time as a percentage of all registrations , United Kingdom, 2018 Q3 (July to September) to 2023 Q3 (July to September) (VEH1153a)
Chart 1 shows the new zero emission registrations of cars and light goods vehicles as a percentage of all new registrations in the second quarter (July to September) since 2018. This percentage has increased every year since 2018 for both cars and light good vehicles, however 2023 saw a small decrease for light goods vehicles. In 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September), zero emission cars accounted for 17% of new vehicle registrations, with zero emission light goods vehicles accounting for 6%.
Licensed vehicles
Table 3: Licensed zero emission vehicles by body type, with one year and total stock comparison, United Kingdom, 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September) (VEH0101a), (VEH1103a)
| Body type | 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September): Licensed vehicles (thousands) | 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September): Licensed zero emission vehicles (thousands) | 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September): Proportion of all licensed road using vehicles that are zero emission |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cars | 33,582 | 864 | 2.6% |
| Light goods vehicles | 4,730 | 58 | 1.2% |
| Heavy goods vehicles | 543 | 3 | 0.5% |
| Motorcycles | 1,470 | 14 | 1.0% |
| Buses and coaches | 143 | 3 | 2.1% |
| Other vehicles | 857 | <1 | 0.6% |
| Total | 41,325 | 942 | 2.3% |
Background notes
About these figures
Almost all the statistics in the vehicle licensing statistics series are derived by Department for Transport statisticians from extracts of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) vehicle database. The main purpose of the database is to administer vehicle registration and licensing records in the United Kingdom.
For further information about the data used in this release, please see our guidance page which contains:
- detailed notes and definitions
- a note on users and uses of these statistics
There is also a Statement of Administrative Sources for the DVLA vehicles database.
In this release, numbers may not add up to totals and percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.
Geographic coverage
In July 2014, vehicle and registration services for Northern Ireland were centralised at DVLA, where these services for Great Britain were already administered. This created a single vehicle register for the United Kingdom, in place of separate registers for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. From this time, statistics can be provided for both Great Britain and the United Kingdom.
This statistical release focuses on the United Kingdom for recent trends in vehicles but uses data for Great Britain to review long term trends.
Strength and weaknesses of the data
The databases used for these statistics can be regarded as being virtually complete in terms of the number of vehicles registered for the first time, licensed vehicles, and vehicles with a SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification). However, there may be some errors in some of the specific details of individual vehicles.
The Department for Transport has previously estimated that under 2% of the vehicle records have an inaccuracy in one of the variables used for the statistics published. Other factors to consider in interpreting these statistics include:
- changes in legislation
- seasonal variation which affects some vehicle types
- foreign registered vehicles may also use UK roads without being registered with DVLA
- Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) evasion
Most of these factors will only have a marginal effect for most uses of the data.
National Statistics
These statistics were designated as National Statistics in April 2012.
National Statistics are produced to the high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from any political interference.
Details of ministers and officials who receive pre-release access to these statistics up to 24 hours before release can be found in the pre-release access list.
Next release
Vehicle licensing statistics are published quarterly with a once a year extended annual release.
Dates of future release dates will be advertised via the DfT statistical publications schedule.
To hear more about DfT statistics publications as they are released, please follow us on X(formerly known as Twitter).
Related sources of information
There are more recent data than published here available from various industry bodies covering most vehicle sales.
For car and van data, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) publish monthly shortly after the month-end, in advance of the publication of DfT’s detailed official statistics. This can be useful to look at the latest trends in vehicle registrations. Although there are slight differences in coverage of the SMMT data, the volumes and trends published by SMMT are generally consistent with DfT published data.
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