New car sales last month were down around 13% on the pre-pandemic April average, preliminary figures show.
Around 141,000 new cars were registered in the UK in April, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said.
That is approximately a 30-fold increase on the same month in 2020, when the country was in a full coronavirus lockdown.
But it is about 13% lower than the April average between 2010 and 2019.
Final figures will be released by the SMMT at 9am.
Dealerships were allowed to reopen across the UK last month after more than three months of closure.
Jim Holder, editorial director of magazine and website What Car?, said the coming months will be “critical” to the automotive industry’s recovery from the pandemic.
The cost of insurance for electric cars has reversed by an average of £75 in the first three months of 2021, meaning the vehicles are still cheaper to insure than petrol or diesel motors - but the gap as narrowed.
The average annual premium for electric vehicles has dropped to £566 in the first quarter, down from £641 in the previous three months, according to data from Compare the Market.
Now, electric vehicles are typically £45 cheaper to insure than petrol and diesel alternatives, although some electric cars can still be more expensive to insure than others.
However, this gap has narrowed substantially compared to the last three months of 2020, with petrol and diesel models seeing bigger falls in cost.
Ford Fiesta
New car registrations were up an unprecedented 3,176.6 per cent compared with the same month last year when lockdown was at its strictest, closing dealers and seeing just 4,321 new cars changing hands.
April 2021 was a very different month, and while the 141,483 new models registered in the first month of the second quarter this year represented a 32-fold increase, figures are still 12.9 per cent below the 10-year average for April 2021, despite dealers being able to sell cars both in person and via click-and-collect.
Such a curious month meant anomalies abound in the SMMT’s figures. Diesel cars enjoyed a rare boom, with registrations up 1,198.6 per cent, and mild-hybrid diesels up over 12,000 per cent. Sales of petrol cars rose 4,482.9 per cent, and mild-hybrid petrols were almost 17,000 per cent (or 170 times) more popular.
These were the best-selling cars in April
(Ford)
April saw a huge increase in car sales compared with the previous month, though figures still fell below the 10-year average. In total, 141,583 cars were registered during the month, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), dwarfing the 4,321 vehicles registered in the same month in 2020 as dealers were forced to close as a result of coronavirus restrictions.
April’s most popular cars were some firm favourites which make an appearance each month, though it represented a bumper month for Ford, with three of the Blue Oval’s cars making an appearance in the top 10. Let’s take a look at how the best-sellers list stacked up.