Photo: MrMogensen/My EV Review
Last year turned out to be very positive for Tesla in the UK and its Model 3 was very popular. Following the manufacturer's electric car as the best-selling car in December, Model 3 also became the #2 best-selling car in the UK in 2021, beating many ICE competitors.
The British are increasingly showing their love for Tesla, choosing its cars as their vehicles. In 2021, their interest grew even more, and Model 3 received a huge amount of sympathy. This allowed the electric car to become one of the top-selling vehicles of any propulsion type last year in the UK, according to SMMT data. Among other things, this was made possible by very strong sales in December, when Model 3 became the best-selling car in the country and registered 9,612 vehicles.
In 2021, Tesla registered a staggering 34,783 Model 3s, made possible by the ever-increasing production capacity at Giga Shanghai. This allowed the electric car to become the second best-selling vehicle in the UK last year, which is a stunning achievement. Model 3 was second only to the Vauxhall Corsa with 40,914 registrations, which has enjoyed great popularity among the British for several years.
It should be kept in mind that the Corsa starts at £16,440, which makes it a very affordable car and therefore affects its wider prevalence. At the same time, the base Model 3 costs £42,990 and despite this, the car still outperformed the other, cheaper and previously more popular ICE vehicles.
In third place is MINI with 31,792 registrations. Fourth place belongs to the Mercedes Benz A-Class with 40,710 units. Volkswagen Polo closes out the top five with 30,634 registrations. It is worth noting that not a single electric car, except Model 3, was able to take a place in the top 10, which indicates a great interest specifically in Tesla's electric cars.
Source: SMMT
In 2021, 1,647,181 vehicles were sold in the UK, 190,727 or 11.6% of which were battery-powered electric vehicles (BEV). This reflects an increase of 76.3% over the same period last year. Sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles continued to decline by 15.7% and 48.1%, respectively, indicating a significant increase in interest in electric vehicles.
© 2022, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.
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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
