Fantasy figures - 14 April 2026

Welcome to the motoring podcast, your weekly discussion of motoring news.

This is episode 679 on Tuesday the 14th of April, 2026.

Hello, I'm not Alan, I'm Andrew, and this week, you'll hear us explain what the definition

of sale is.

In new car news, you can join us in hoping the promise is wrapped up in a tiny package

from Japan or backed up in the real world.

And in points of interest, you'll learn what the future looked like in the early 80s.

And we have no follow-up this week, we go straight in to the new news.

And as it's towards the beginning of the month, and unfortunately Alan is not here for this,

but it is the new car registration figures for March 2026.

And they were overall the best figures since 2019, still a long way off 2019 figures,

but good nonetheless, it is a positive move, they are more than they were last year.

Also, this is the best month ever for battery electric vehicles.

With 86,120 registered, that gives them an overall market share of 22.4%.

Full year on year though, for the month, it is up 24.2%.

This should really surprise no one, because as we get closer to the 2030 date, 2035 date,

obviously the manufacturers will be providing or looking to sell fewer internal combustion

engine vehicles to ensure that they hit their mandated figures, although we can get onto that

in a bit. Therefore, as more adoption happens, more people go through the cycle, particularly

if you're on lease and fleet stuff, you will then be renewing your battery electric vehicle,

there's the chances are that you probably will go for a battery electric vehicle again,

or maybe a FEV, because FEVs did astonishingly well. They rose year on year 46.9%.

Petrol was 165,997 registrations, which is down, again this is year on year,

down 6.1%. Diesel was 18,571, which is down 11.4%. Do not forget, last year we were already seeing

diesels dropping quite dramatically. This is just continuing that because less and less,

well there's just less options. And the petrol hybrid for most people can pick up the economy,

which was the side of things that some people needed a diesel for.

Full hybrids registered 60,268, which is up 7.3%, and I've told you the BEV and the FEV.

If we look at where the vehicles were registered, private is up, it was 162,470,

which is a 10% change on 2025. And that means their market share is for 26 is 42.7, which is

up just a fraction on last year, which is a good thing, although it needs to be more to balance

out the inequality, which is fleet, which was 208,853 vehicles registered, their market share now

is 54.9%. Business was 9,304, up from 7,830, so that's 2.4%. The top models, and starting at

number 10, the BMW 1 Series registered 4,936, number 9 was the Tesla Model Y,

number 8 was the Volkswagen Golf, number 7 was the MGHS, number 6 was the Volvo XC40,

number 5 a Vauxhall Corsa, which was 6,315 models. Number 4 is the Kia Sportage,

number 3 is the Nissan Kashkai, and a bit of a shock, the Ford Puma with 9,193 vehicles registered.

Therefore, our new number one most registered vehicle that is most registered, not most sales,

is the JQ7 with 10,064 models registered. We all need to remember this, particularly the UK media,

which seemed to fail on this dramatically this week, is that the only data we can go on is

registrations. A registration does not equal a sale. A sale legally has to involve an exchange of

monies. Registrations do not, in the way that the UK does it, it's different in Europe obviously.

To do a registration you have to actually sell the car. We don't do that system for whatever reason,

therefore it leaves it up for the potential of abuse where companies register more than they

have actually sold. But if I run onto the spreadsheet of Doom, which is about 50-50 actually,

when it comes to colour wise, but numbers wise it's very different.

Starting with the doomy side of things, our bath is down 52%,

Alfa Romeo is down 30%. DS is down 71%, Fiat is down 43%, it's really rough, I'm still on this so far.

Ford is down 19%. What that equates to because these are quite large numbers, last year they

registered 23,634, this year 19,178. Genesis is down 32%, Jaguar is down 100%. Again, like we

talked about last month, should be no surprise, they've got no vehicles to register or they shouldn't

have any left to register and this is the first month where there is zero registered. Lotus is

down 37%, Maxis is down 100%, they registered nothing in March this year, Porsche is down 22%,

Seat is down 29%, Skywell is down 17%, Subaru is down 40% and other Imports is down 52%.

Now if I go back to the top and start with the more positive numbers, Alpine is up a whopping

1,723% winning the Not Sponsored by MG award for most impressive percentage change.

BYD is up 134%, Citroen is up 144%, Coupre up 17%, GWM 224%,

JQ up 574%, they registered this year 12,034 vehicles as opposed to 1,786 last year.

That's a marked turn and if you go on to AutoTrader and put in less than 100 miles

in your search term, you will find the number of JQs that hit that mark is actually quite

limited so this has not been done purely on pre-reging in case anyone was wondering.

However, if you do put that in and you see some of the other brands out there,

there's some scary numbers for some of them. Moving on though, a Leap Motor is up 880%,

Mini is up 32%, a Moda is up 184%, Smart is up 17%, Suzuki is up 67%, Tesla is up 20%

and Schpeng is up 819%. Therefore, we can see that the newer Chinese vehicles have really taken a

hold in the market and they are making massive jumps in the number of vehicles that they are

getting registered. As ever, Mike Hawes gave a statement and he said, the strongest new car

market since 2019 with the highest ever volume of EV registrations is a boost to the industry

and the economy. However, the headline belied, the costs incurred and the challenges involved.

Much of March's performance will be from orders placed before the start of the Iran conflict,

which threatens to raise the cost of living undermining consumer confidence.

Against this backdrop and with the EV market falling further away from the mandated levels

despite record levels of incentives, an urgent review of the transition is required to secure

a sustainable market, economic growth and the UK's net zero ambitions. We've echoed that,

we have said that it needs to be done. We've repeatedly said how the numbers were fantasy

numbers in the first place that didn't reflect reality then and they really, really do not reflect

reality now. Hopefully, the government listens and it doesn't get too late. Okay, let us move on.

Talking of the government and once more, Tata benefit from money from the government as there

is 380 million being invested in the Tata Group's Agritas Battery Factory that is being built in

Bridgewater and Somerset or near Bridgewater and Somerset. This is apparently a full billion

pounds facility and when it opens in 2027, there will be more than 4,000 jobs created to do with

this plant and the expectation is that the 40 gigawatt hour output that this factory will be

able to do should be about half the UK's needs by 2030. The grant came from the modern industrial

strategy delivered from the Department of Business and Trade's Automotive Transformation Fund

via the Advanced Propulsion Center or APC. Wow, how many hands did this go through?

The government has made some estimations on what the economic growth over a 25-year period

as a result of this. Allegedly, and my word, talking of fantasy figures, 43 billion pounds of

economic growth. But one of the good things to see is that there will be 300 apprenticeships

on the site as well connected with the over 4,000 jobs. That is good. Also, they say that there's

going to be over 2,000, there is over 2,200 people who are working on the site's construction

during the coming year before it opens. This wasn't the only automotive side of things that did

got some money from the grant. There is Altilia Metals which make low-carbon recycled battery

materials. They have received 18.5 million to build a new battery recycling facility in Plymouth

Devon. That's great. They expect to be able to process 24,000 EV batteries per year with that,

removing the materials. The technology has been trialled apparently already with tests with JLR

in this sense. That sounds good because that will be supplying the local market. Don't forget,

there's Sunderland as well with their battery factory. Also, there is Surface Transforms which

is working on ultra-low emission brake technologies and they got 3.5 million. As we know, brake and

tires are the next focal point as far as emission goes. The EU's already made that clear and the

UK will just adopt it, I am sure. It's positive. It's being put into the car industry. This is a

good thing. Well done Tata for being on the end of that lion's share of that again.

Right. This is an article that is in AutoCar and it is titled New Stalantis Europe Design Boss

Vows No Clones in Effort to Separate Brands. We've included this because anyone who's listened to us,

I don't know, over the last year or so, has maybe heard us more me than Alan because Alan

tries to be nicer than me. Talking about how Stalantis has liked to make vehicles very similar,

particularly in silhouette and the front and the back are allowed to be changed slightly but

the rest are sharing panels because of economies of scales, etc. However, now that Gilles Vidal is

back from Renault, he's said, nope, that's not going to happen where it's possible because don't

forget they will be sharing underlining platform and hard points and engineering stuff like that

that you just cannot get around. Outside of that, he wants each of the brands to have their own

individuality. He's talking about individuality not just in terms of design but also in how they

feel, how they drive and how they elicit the reaction from people. This is good because he

is very clear that we should stop fighting ourselves and we should be beating the competition,

not beating ourselves. This was the prime point of what we've said, it looked like they're stealing

cells from themselves when it's just the same, virtually the same looking car, just a few elements

swapped out. Some do it more than others and are more successful than others but

it's great to see this and it's also delightful to know that Gilles listens to the show and has

taken on board our feedback. We look forward to the consultancy fee being paid at a later date.

More seriously, do click the link in the show notes because it is a pretty frank, as much as

these things are, a pretty frank interview with Auto Car and it's interesting to hear his perspective

on it. Hopefully, he can pull it off. Hopefully, he's given the backing and so are the engineers,

et cetera, in each of the brands are given the backing to do this because Stalantis need to do

something. They need to do something to arrest the slide in their sales and registrations. They

need to grab the public's interest again and they need to get people really keen in a particular

brand or not and they need to work hard at that. This is one of the easiest ways is to design-wise

but hopefully, it's allowed to follow through because as I keep saying and Alan keeps saying,

more choice we have the better as far as consumers.

Moving on and back in the UK, BYD has confirmed that it is going to be installing 300 in total,

1500 kilowatt charges in the UK under a brand identity called Flash. Very good, well done.

Over the next 12 months, which should bring around 600 charges in total, which would mean

that if the grid can provide it and the environmental conditions are optimum and the

technology on the car charging could take a battery of 123 kilowatt hour battery from 10 to 70% in

five minutes, such as their new to be out Denzer Z9 GT, which we will probably talk about next week.

This network will be open to all car brands as well, so they are doing what Tesla had

belatedly got into. Again, it's something we have banged on and on about for years and years.

Why the manufacturers aren't doing this, I do not understand, but they should have been all over

rolling out charging networks, but they haven't been. This charging looks really impressive

if it can be backed up in the real world on the grid because they're talking about working at places

that already have other charges as well. Now, the maximum capacity that they can charge at

is a problem that other charging networks have found because where they're located may not

necessarily be able to provide that. We are talking the absolute optimum here. What it means in the

real world, we don't know yet until they're installed and until they're up and running,

and if they are busy taking from the same source at the same time. It sounds like it'll be quicker

than most. BYD are making it clear that they understand a bit of this because they are going

to have on-site battery packs, they're going to have solar panels topping up those batteries,

therefore it's not just wiping out what the national grid can provide. However, if those sites become

popular, the ability to recharge those batteries becomes more difficult. Hopefully, this brings

into sharp focus that the grid needs to expand its capabilities very, very quickly. It's not just

about sticking charges everywhere, although that's vital. It's about getting the power and the ability

to provide the power that people need at those particular charges, depending on what they are.

I like this a lot. Like I said, why other manufacturers haven't done this, I have no idea.

To round out the first part of the show, we're going to stick with charging.

The company Fleet E, so that's F-L-E-E-T-E, it's not a spelling mistake, oh dear,

which is a Fleet EV charging service providers has opened the largest electric

HGV commercial charging hub at the port of Tilbury. There are 16 ultra-rapid charges,

allowing 16 fully electric HGVs to charge simultaneously. They are all using the five

megawatt shared facility. This is great because Tilbury also has other charging options as well,

so this is just adding to that, as we've spoken about if you've listened to us for any time.

Whenever we talk about electric HGVs, it really makes a lot of sense if you do hub

and spoke type logistics, although that is improving for longer distance as time goes on.

Fleet E are talking about opening a second 26 bay site at Hams Hall Distribution Park in

Coles Hill near Birmingham. Again, that'd be brilliant. Another key logistic hub, that area.

This is really good to see. There is a link here from EV Powered to click the link that's in the

show notes to have a full read of this because this is great stuff that is happening. The more

of this, the quicker we can get electric HGVs on the road, the better it is for everyone.

The government's seemingly quite serious about this because they are investing a lot of money.

I mean, into this one, they helped put a million pound into the port of Tilbury to install EV charges

for Tilbury. It's not just for this project by Fleet E, but other charges as well. That's good.

That is the end of the first part. And in non-guilt minutes, like to remind you once again,

on Thursday the 23rd of April, so that is a week Thursday, at 8pm British summer time,

on our YouTube channel, we will be having a live Q&A. And in order for us to have a live Q&A,

we would really appreciate some cues from you please. A round automotive and motoring

topics ideally, maybe about the show a little bit as well. We'll open to that. And as Jason

Piper asked on Blue Sky at the back end of last week, and thank you very much for asking this

question, Jason. And I will quote his full post here. Are we talking if Liz Truss were a car,

what car would she be type questions? Or where do you see the FEV market in three years time type

questions? To which both Alan and I replied separately, we'll take either and both. But we

both did love the first one. A word on Jason, you get the special motoring podcast prize for the

social media comment of the week there. Excellent. I heartily laughed out loud when I read that.

Excellent post. If you go into the show notes, there will be a link in the middle of the show

notes in a in bold that takes you directly to our contact page. If you can put in the subject

line Q&A first, please, this stops Alan ignoring it and thinking it is spam. Unfortunately,

does that with important messages to apparently, but there we are. But we are a bit inundated

at the minute with spam promising many things that these people can offer us and none of which

we need or want. If you put Q&A at the start of your subject line, and then put your question in

the contact things, we will then pull all the questions together and we will pick out the,

I don't know how many we're going to do depends how long it's going to take us, but we will put

them into a running order. And then we will go live a week Thursday at 8pm, British summertime,

on our YouTube channel. Looking forward to it, actually. Please get the questions in.

Moving on, it is new, new car news. And this week, we're in for a tiny, lovely surprise.

You've probably heard or seen this because it was all over everywhere. The Honda Super N EV.

This is a small city car with a range of up to 199 miles. But it's under £20,000 apparently and

it's going on sale this summer. All that really sounds good. I know last week or the week before

I was moaning about vehicles being over a certain price and how under 200 miles was just not

acceptable, frankly. Under 20,000, you're doing nearly 200 miles or it has the potential to do

nearly 200 miles. That's spot on. That is actually offering something to customers that enables more

people to take advantage of an EV than other models that are on offer. Some more expensive and some

less expensive. It just takes that a little bit of stress and fear out for people who haven't moved

across yet. Obviously, we've got all our fingers and toes crossed that the real world experience

gets close to this 199 miles in optimum conditions because we have to remember conditions affect

things. But this is great. There's a lot of talk about how it reminds people of the Honda City Turbo

2 from the 80s. There's a link to a Motor and Research article here, but the colour that's

been picked for this looks absolutely superb. The car looks great. Like their E looked great.

Unfortunately, it didn't back it up with the price and the specs. But the car looked great.

This one equally looks great. I can see this just being something that people really want to have

and will meet a load of needs because there's that psychological barrier to get through. Even though

most people don't do many miles, it just gets them over that barrier, especially if they don't have

a home charger or charging at work or whatever. They have to rely on the public network. This

makes such a lot of sense. Do click the link in the show notes. Have a look around it. The full

details will come out in due course. When they do, obviously, we will bring that to you when it gets

closer to launch time. I can't wait to see one. I can't wait to try one. I'm really excited for

this. Genuinely excited for this. This is one of the first cars for years. It feels like years.

I'm genuinely excited because I think this can do so much for so many people, particularly

those who are reluctant to adopt. I think there's a lot to be said for that.

Now, I'm going to move to Cooper. Only last week, I was complaining that

we didn't know what Cooper was going to be coming out with. Obviously, they listened to us and

have rushed out development of their Renault 5 rival, just in a matter of days, obviously.

This is the Cooper Reval, and it is going to start at just under £23,000. With that, you will get a

37-kWh lithium-ion phosphate battery, which will give you a claim range of around 185 miles,

what I was saying before. Previous one, 199 miles under £20,000. That's a bit disappointing, I have

to say. We're using a maximum of a 90-kWh charger. You can get from 10% to 80% refill in 27 minutes.

That's not dreadful. That's the core base trim level. If you go up to the V1 and the V2, you get

the 52-kWh nickel manganese cobalt battery, or you can get that, which then gives you a range of

around 280 miles. There are 133 brake horsepower standard, but when you go up to the 52-kWh nickel

manganese cobalt battery, you can get 208 brake horsepower. There will be a range topping

one to try and rival the Alpine A290. That's going to be priced at around £37,000. That's a bit

spicy, but if you are saying you are rivaling the A290, that's going to have the same 52-kWh battery

pack. Obviously, with the extra performance that they will get from the motor and everything,

that will bring down the 280 miles to nearer 250 miles. Again, that's not too bad.

I think it's a good-looking little car. I quite like the Coupre's style.

Interior, very recognizable from VW Group. It could do with more buttons, but there we go.

Let's see when we get closer to it, what it's like to drive.

That leaves us now with the last vehicle that we're going to discuss this week. That is that

Mitsubishi is bringing back the Outlander Fev. One of the original, if not the original Fev

of the UK market. It's coming back with a £47,000 price tag, which is quite chunky,

especially if you go back and remember who was registering an awful lot of vehicles

this year and what one of their prime market moves is. That is the affordability. This puts

it straight in up against the Hyundai Tucson, the Toyota RAV4 and the Ford Cougar. That's without

going down in terms of thinking of J-Cous, Amodo's, Cheery, that sort of stuff, all those as well.

Just bear that in mind. When it comes to that, again, we've not been given full specifications,

but EV powered have managed to winkle out a little bit of information. It is expected that the

EV only driving from the Fev will be 53 miles. I remember testing one of these back many moons

ago and the range was 20. Well, I physically got 20 something out of it. Not great. It was pretty

good for the time, but fortunately they have updated their technology to do that. The overall

range is expected to beat 500 miles when it's a combination of the 2.4-litre naturally aspirated

petrol engine and then the two electric motors so that it's got four-wheel drive all the time.

In terms of EV only, it's close to the likes of Tucson, the Cougar and the 5008, but it's

way shorter the VW Group and Toyota. Does this offer something significantly different enough?

Does it offer something positive enough to make a dent that the five years they've been gone?

I just worried that it's been a very significant five years because

the incumbents have taken up the slack. You look at the difference in the Hyundai Group

in that time. You look at the difference in the VW Group in what they've now got to offer in that

time. Toyota have always been there and they're about when it comes to hybrids and then they've

gone in for plug-ins as well. Like I said, the Chinese brands, they're offering lots

on paper for less money. I hope it's enough. They're coming over with two cars that we know,

so they're coming over or two vehicles. They're coming over the FEV and the pickup.

We know them in this market, so maybe they're trying to start us off being familiar, but there

are more vehicles to come. Hopefully, they bring some more differentials that help them stand out

a bit. I'm going to now take us to points of interest. We have a lunchtime read from Driven to

Right. SV Robinson has written and it is titled A State of the Market. A brief look into Cummings

and goings in the compact estate market. I picked this because I think it's really interesting,

not only because he explains what he considers the compact market and how that's more affordable

as well. Therefore, that counts out the premium brands, but also things like the Passat and the

Skoda Superb. You're looking at C-segment really. The offerings you have have become less and less

Obviously, SUVs have a lot to be held accountable for that, but equally, people are buying them.

What are you supposed to do? He does run through what some of the options are and what he feels

because he has an Octavia estate, what he feels are the pluses and minuses of what's on the market

at the moment. I just find it interesting because I think the estate still offers more practicality

than the SUV, alleged equivalent. I don't think it uses its footprint as well. The main difference

you can argue is the height of seating position. Therefore, it's easier to get in and out of a

taller car. That's understandable. Other than that, is it actually offering more? Or are we

just being suckered into thinking it does? Or is there a different psychological reason that

people prefer an SUV? I think it's a lovely written article. I found it really fascinating.

It got me thinking as well. Hopefully, it'll do the same for you.

Which moves us on to the list of the week. It is from Top Gear. Once again, Mr. Tom Ford has written

another cracking list of the week. It is called Performance vs Practicality, 12 great concept

cars you need to see. He asked the question, what's better, sporty invention or practical

creativity? That does seem to be how these things go. It's like, here's the practical,

sensible concept or here's the performance sporty thing. Sometimes there's a bit of crossover

and there is a bit of crossover in here. However, out of the 12, I will ask everyone to scroll down

to. I did find this very tough because I thought virtually all of these were very interesting

in their own ways. I think I'm going to go with the Citroen Tubic, which was a nine-seater van,

basically, with a pull-out luggage drawer, it says here, inspired by the Type H Citroen from

Days of Yore. It was back in 2011, a hybrid-drive train, swively seats and

much more complex concept thinking, it says. There's some of the shapes on here, some of the

decals and things like that. I think are very interesting. I love the idea of it. I'm a big

fan of car from van anyway, as you all know. I think that's a much more practical way to go

rather than SUV if you don't want an estate. If you are all just aiming for practicality,

car from van is the ultimate. I remember at the time when this came out, I was just fascinated

by the shapes and everything in the finish on it. There are 11 others, all very interesting in

various ways. I don't know what Alan would pick actually here. I could think of about four that

he might pick, but I don't know. Do click the link in the show notes. Have a look yourself and see

which one you would pick because there are some really interesting cars here, really interesting.

Talking of interesting cars, I'm going to round out the end finally. Think of this as an additional

lunchtime read for you. It is from Anthony Ingram. It's from a while back now. It's from September

last year. On Hagerty, it is the British Leyland ECV3 Eco Special. This is what the future looked

like from British Leyland's perspective in 1982. Now, that sentence may make you laugh. However,

when you see the pictures, you can go, oh, hang on. This was really quite forward thinking at the

time. There was the German vehicle that we talked about six months or so ago, where the project

was very similar to this. You can see elements in today's cars. You can see that with this,

albeit as Anthony says, from the lens of the early 80s, late 70s. It's a fascinating vehicle.

It's amazing the specs and what they achieved in it, even for that time.

Like I say, you look at this and you go, oh, yeah, I can see that today. I can see elements here in

these cars in that car and all the rest of it, maybe not the dashboard. It's a great read. Anthony's

done a fabulous, fabulous research here. Lovely thing to learn about. I didn't know about it.

You can be informed and entertained at the same time. That's what the internet is supposed to be for.

Do click the link in the show notes. Do enjoy that and then tell Anthony that you've read it

and told him and you've enjoyed it. That finishes out the show for this week. Apologies from Alan.

He's really sorry he couldn't make it. Just things outside of his control have overtaken,

so he just could not be here. Hopefully, he's back next week. Hopefully, he's back next Thursday.

That's for sure. Otherwise, it's going to be a very dull Q&A where it's just me.

Don't forget, do get your questions in. Do start on the subject line with Q&A,

and therefore, it will be picked up much easier. Thank you. Looking forward to what you've got

to suggest to us. That could be interesting. I'm looking forward to doing the live stream.

Really, hope you can watch along, even if you don't put any questions in,

because it would be great to have you there. That sort of leaves me now just to say that

between now and next time, you can give us any feedback and share your thoughts with the show

at motrimpodcast.com on Blue Sky, at Motrim Podcast on Instagram or Facebook,

and the contact page of motrimpodcast.com, the hub of all our activities.

Remember, you can support us financially via Patreon, and please leave a review and rating

on Apple Podcasts YouTube or however your podcast app does such a thing. The best way to get in

touch with Alan would be to search on Blue Sky at AJP Bradley, that's B-R-A-D-L-E-Y.

You should find him there. I'm on there as well, if you search for crack windscreen,

although dipping in and out, not there all the time. If not, try LinkedIn. I'm on there a bit

more regularly as well. We'll be back very soon, hopefully we, not just me, but we'll be back very

soon. He's not been Alan, I've been under clues, and safe motoring.

Fantasy figures - 14 April 2026

About this episode

new car registration figures

battery electric vehicles

petrol registrations

diesel registrations

fleet registrations

Bmw 1

Tesla Model

Volkswagen Golf

Volvo XC40

Vauxhall Corsa

Ford Puma

Kia Sportage

registrations do not equal a sale

Alfa Romeo

DS

Fiat

Genesis

Jaguar

Porsche

pre-reging

Mini

Suzuki

record levels of incentives

transition

Altilia Metals

24,000 EV batteries per year

BYD

Fleet E

Honda Super N EV

VW Group

Hyundai Tucson

hybrids

Skoda Superb

Request an Explanation

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