A rise in the popularity of Chinese brands pushed total car sales in the UK above the 2m mark last year for the first time since 2019, figures reveal.

Chinese companies accounted for 9.7% of the 2m new car registrations in the UK in 2025, or 196,000 vehicles, according to preliminary figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a lobby group. That was nearly double the 4.9% market share achieved by the country’s carmakers in 2024.

Electric car sales rose by nearly a quarter year on year to a record of 473,000, making up 23.4% of the overall market, four percentage points higher than last year. That helped the average emissions of new cars sold in the UK to fall by 10% compared with the year before.

Mike Hawes, the SMMT chief executive, said 2025 sales represented a “reasonably solid result amid tough economic and geopolitical headwinds”.

Carmakers have faced lower British demand for new vehicles in the years since the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns in early 2020. The dip has come at a particularly tricky time as they try to shift from petrol and diesel to battery electric models, under pressure to comply with sales targets known as the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate.

Chinese brands, led by MG, BYD and Chery, which also runs Jaecoo and Omoda, have pushed into the UK which, unlike the US or the EU, has not imposed tariffs on imports from the country.

Tesla, the US manufacturer led by Elon Musk, also produces cars in Shanghai for export to the UK, further adding to the market’s newfound dependence on Chinese imports.

BYD sales rose to 51,000, six times last year’s figure, while Chery’s brands increased by 13 times to 54,000. MG sold 85,000 – just below Germany’s Mercedes-Benz or South Korea’s Hyundai.

The Chinese communist party has heavily backed the manufacture of electric cars in the hope of winning a significant proportion of the global automotive market, although it has also found success in Europe with the sale of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), which combine a petrol engine with a smaller battery recharged by cable.

The Japanese carmakers Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki and Honda were among the biggest victims of the ascent of the Chinese manufacturers, but sales for several European brands also fell last year, including Stellantis’s Citroën and Fiat and Volkswagen’s Seat.

The Chinese competition has complicated European manufacturers’ efforts to comply with the ZEV mandate, which set a headline target of 28% battery electric car sales for 2025.

Hawes said the increase in electric sales in the UK was “incredibly positive and good news, but the fact is it’s still below where it needs to be”. The SMMT has calculated that carmakers are offering discounts worth £11,000 on each electric car sold, a cumulative cost of £5.5bn.

The equivalent discounts for non-battery cars are estimated to be about £6,000.

He called for the government to bring forward an official review of the mandate to this year, rather than waiting until 2027.

The UK government had already in April weakened the targets by adding more generous loopholes that make them easier to achieve. However, the UK is facing pressure for a further relaxation of the rules after the EU last month proposed watering down its own ban on petrol and diesel cars after 2035.

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said that it was likely that the industry had avoided fines under the mandate for the second year running, once the “flexibilities” are taken into account. The thinktank said the industry only needed to reach 20.4% electric sales to avoid paying fines.

The extra loopholes allowed manufacturers to sell more plug-in hybrids, which some manufacturers favour because they are more profitable. Sales of PHEVs duly soared by a third during 2025.

The SMMT said it was too early to say whether buyers had been put off electric car purchases after Rachel Reeves in November announced a “pay-per-mile” charge for electric cars. The charge will be introduced in 2028, and government forecasts suggest it will act as a drag on sales.

Hawes nevertheless criticised the “conflicting message to consumers” from the charge, at a time when the government is subsidising electric car sales with grants.