Motorcycles and cars registered in Great Britain 2000-2020

About 1.27 million motorcycles and almost 31.7 million cars were registered in Great Britain at the end of 2020, roughly the same volume as in 2019 despite the economic uncertainty faced by the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic. That previous year, around 2.3 million new passenger cars were added to the UK car parc.

Car ownership remains high in UK households

There were almost 28 million households in the United Kingdom, according to recent 2019 estimates. Car ownership in UK households was estimated at around 80 percent in 2020. This directly impacts the motorization rate in the United Kingdom, which continues to be well below the EU average but is on track to reach 500 motor vehicles per 1,000 people. Comparatively, Luxembourg is the EU country with the largest number of passenger cars per 1,000 inhabitants.

 Increased uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles

  Following the introduction of electric vehicles and discussions surrounding higher emission standards, the number of licensed ultra-low emission vehicles has been rising significantly. In the past decade it has grown from around 9,000 units in 2010 to nearly 270,000 in 2019. This increase particularly started to pick up following the diesel scandal.