New car sales have seen a strong start to 2023 compared with the start of last year. Total registrations for January were up nearly 15% against the same month last year helped by a near 20% jump in electric cars and a 19% hike in petrols.

Total new car sales hit 131,994 in January 2023, according to official figures from the SMMT, up almost 17,000 on the same month in 2022.

While electric car sales were up 19.8% for the month and their share of the market was up to 13.1% against 12.5% in January last year, this share is down on the overall 2022 battery electric car share of 16.6%.

However, one month does not give a full picture for the year and the SMMT and dealers are confident of a good level of growth in overall registrations during 2023. The electric figures are also skewed by deliveries of the biggest selling brand, Tesla. As there was no shipment of cars arriving this month, Tesla didn’t make the top 10 with just 579 cars registered compared to over 16,000 in December and 915 from rival Polestar.

Car dealers that spoke to Electrifying.com also reported that while the market isn’t as buoyant as the past couple of years, they were positive about the outlook. Several retailers reported new car supply is improving, depending on the brand, and despite tougher economic conditions, order banks remain in good shape and that some of the most in-demand cars were new electric vehicles.

Those brands with a strong electric car mix did well in January with Volkswagen topping the chart and selling almost 4,000 more cars than in the first month last year. Ford and Audi were the second and third best selling brands respectively for the month.MG saw an increase of almost 4,000 in the month to become the second fastest climber, with the third fastest increase in terms of units sold coming from Skoda. It gained more than 2,300 cars on the same month last year.

Kia, which had been one of the fastest climbers in 2022, saw the largest unit fall of any brand (down 1,490 cars) but was still the fourth biggest brand overall. Mercedes was down 1,325 cars and Vauxhall saw the third largest drop, down 1,312 units.

Polestar outsold Tesla for the month