Licensed cars by propulsion or fuel type: Great Britain and United Kingdom

The number of diesel cars on Britain’s roads has fallen for the first time in at least 25 years.Government statistics show there were 12.29 million diesels on the roads in 2019 – compared with 12.4 million a year earlier.This is the first decline since records began in 1994 – when there were just 1.6 million diesels licensed.

Meanwhile there was a rise in the number of petrol cars – up from 18.5 million in 2018 to 18.8 million in 2019.

There were also rises in the number of pure battery-electric cars (90,000), plug-in hybrid cars (145,000) and mild hybrid cars (514,000)