The world’s looking increasingly tough out there for commercial vehicle manufacturers and the operators that depend on the vans they produce. SMMT’s latest new registration figures, published earlier this week, show the market has declined for eight months in a row as a panoply of tax changes and business uncertainty combine to subdue demand.
While July isn’t a particularly high-profile month for new van uptake – March and September deliver the lion’s share of new vehicles reaching the road – a -5.1% fall remains a concern, with clear reasons for a decline. Broadly, business confidence remains low in a constrained economy, and the cyclical nature of the market following some previous bumper years of investment mean a reduced appetite for new van acquisition.
Conversely, appetite is increasing for zero-emission vans, although the pace of growth remains some way behind ambition, despite a huge choice of models. Year to date, 8.8% of new vans (including the ZEVs in the >3.5-4.25t range that count towards the mandate) run purely on battery – still a long way behind the 16% target for the year. Reaching such a target currently seems a Herculean task – one the industry is up for, but success depends on rebuilding wider economic confidence to give the impetus to invest in new vehicles, and action on infrastructure to translate that investment decision into zero-emission uptake.
The rest of the year remains challenging – the latest outlook has been revised downwards and now expects the total market to finish on 321,000 units, with a commensurate effect on ZEV uptake to an 8.6% share. With August typically a weak month for new van uptake, all eyes will be looking ahead to September, which will set the tone for the rest of the year.
