{"id":54990,"date":"2026-02-11T06:46:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T06:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/?p=54990"},"modified":"2026-02-11T07:07:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T07:07:31","slug":"used-car-market-rises-for-third-year-in-a-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/2026\/news\/used-car-market-rises-for-third-year-in-a-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Used car market rises for third year in a row"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0UK\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/2026\/news\/used-car-market-facing-severe-supply-challenges\/\">used car market<\/a>\u00a0grew by 2.2% to 7,807,872 transactions last year, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smmt.co.uk\/evs-power-up-used-car-market-in-three-year-growth-run\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders<\/a> (SMMT).<\/p>\n<p>The increase marks three consecutive years of growth.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, demand for electrified vehicles accelerated significantly with sales of used electric cars surging 45.7% year-on-year to 274,815 transactions and a 3.5% market share. Plug-in hybrid sales rose by 6.3% to 88,032 units, while hybrids increased by 28.6% to 407,531 units.<\/p>\n<p>Combined, used electrified car transactions rose 30.9% to 770,378 units and 9.9% of all purchases.<\/p>\n<p>However, petrol and diesel models continued to dominate, comprising 89.9% of used transactions. Petrol accounted for 56.7% of the market with diesel making up 33.1% of sales.<\/p>\n<h2>Market resilience<\/h2>\n<p>Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said: \u201cA third year of used car sales growth underscores the market\u2019s resilience, with recovering new car demand revitalising choice and affordability \u2013 especially for EVs \u2013 in the used market.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe record number of buyers making the switch signals growing confidence in zero and ultra-low emission motoring. Maintaining this momentum, however, and driving the fleet renewal needed to decarbonise our roads at pace, must start with ensuring a strong and sustainable new car market.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0UK\u2019s used car market\u00a0grew by 2.2% to 7,807,872 transactions last year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). The increase marks three consecutive years of growth. Meanwhile, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":52365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[145,173,3433],"class_list":["post-54990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-car-sales","tag-smmt","tag-used-car-market"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bodyshopmag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}