Drivers are finding it increasingly difficult to get their hands on new diesel cars as manufacturers slash their availability in Britain, new industry analysis reveals.
Motorists are ‘running out of options’ when it comes to purchasing models with diesel engines as car makers discontinue them across their ranges and the number of new diesel models falling to record low levels.
Almost half of mainstream brands have killed off diesel engines entirely in 2024 – we reveal which popular marques no longer sell them.
Want to buy a new diesel car in 2024? Half of manufacturers simply won’t sell you one having culled them from their ranges. New analysis of the market shows how far diesel has fallen in a decade
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The choice of new diesel cars in 2024 has shrunk by 68 per cent in less than a decade, analysis by second-hand marketplace Car Gurus shows.
Today, there are 65 diesel variants available from the 30 most popular mainstream motor manufacturers, its analysis found.
That’s scarce availability compared to a decade ago; in 2015, there were 202 different diesel models on sale in UK showrooms.
The dwindling availability of new diesel cars partly explains why diesel registrations have fallen off a cliff edge.
Winding the clocks back to 2014, manufacturers sold 1.24million diesel cars in the UK, accounting for more than half (50.1 per cent) of all new passenger vehicle registrations.
Back then, diesels were heavily incentivised by the Government’s emissions-based car taxation (Vehicle Excise Duty) system that rewarded the lower CO2 outputs of oil burners with cheaper annual VED costs.
However, everything changed in 2015 when the automotive sector’s emissions cheating scandal made front page news and the environmental agenda against ‘dirty diesels’ shifted up a gear.
Hiked VED rates for diesels followed, along with the introduction of low emission zones, such as London’s ULEZ, which have much tougher compliancy rules for diesel cars than petrols.
Pressure has also mounted on manufacturers to down tools on the development of diesel – and all internal combustion – engines with governments around the world setting dates to outlaw their availability in the next decade.
As a result, diesel registrations have nosedived.
In 2023, just 142,434 diesel sales were sold in the UK.
Lack of availability and concerns about paying daily emission-zone charges, combined with a growing demand for EVs and hybrids, saw diesel market share slip to a mere 7.5 per cent last year.
In terms of the number of new cars entering the road annually, the statistics show that diesel volumes have crashed by a staggering 89 per cent since 2015.
And the decline continues this year; so far in 2024, just 97,650 diesels have been registered (down 12 per cent year-on-year) and the fuel type is on course to have an even smaller sales share of just 6.4 per cent.
For drivers who cover high mileage, diesel is still likely their best financial option
Is diesel demand dead or is it due to a lack of available cars?
For many Britons, the lack of availability of new diesels is a huge frustration.
The fuel type has held a strong place in the hearts of UK buyers for the past two decades, thanks, in part, to their increased fuel economy compared to petrol alternatives.
For drivers who cover high mileage, they remain a better financial option than petrol and a more practical solution than EVs, given the need to charge them regularly.
This might explain why the latest new registrations data from September showed a rise in demand for diesel from private buyers, with sales increasing by 17.1 per cent – a volume uplift of 1,367 units – compared to a year prior.
This was a greater rise in uptake than EVs that month, though based on a far small volume of sales.
While the overall trend still favours petrol and alternative fuel vehicles (EVs and hybrids), it suggests that the buying public are not quite ready to abandon diesel.
Chris Knapman, editorial director at CarGurus, said: ‘Despite the choice of new diesel vehicles having dwindled in recent years, for some drivers it remains the preferred fuel choice.
‘The good news is that there is still a huge selection of diesel vehicles on the used market, including plenty that are equipped with technology to make them ULEZ compliant.’
Vauxhall is among the brands to completely cull diesel. In 2015, it boasted eight different new models sold with diesel engines. Today, it has zero
Toyota phased diesel engines out of its model line up in 2018 and has instead focussed its attention on hybrids
Which brands have already killed off diesel?
Car Gurus has kept historical records on the availability of diesel models over the last decade.
It shows that in 2015 only two of the 30 mainstream brands – Lexus and Smart – did not offer a diesel-engined car in their ranges.
Fast forward to 2024, and the number of manufacturers who have ditched diesel has risen to almost half, with 14 marques no longer offering a new model with an oil burner under the bonnet.
And many of these are major brands that sell in their thousands each year in the UK.
Vauxhall, which had eight different new cars in dealers in 2015 with the choice of a diesel engine now has none.
Toyota has also gone from a selection of seven diesel models to zero in the same period, and Volvo (eight diesel variants available in 2015), Hyundai (seven), Fiat (seven), Nissan (six) and Honda (four) have also followed suit.
Mini has also killed off its ‘D’ model variants.
Volvo confirmed earlier this year that it had made its last ever diesel model, despite having eight different variants on sale in the UK in 2015. However, its plans to go fully electric have been scuppered by a downturn in demand
Fiat is another brand that has backtracked on its EV promises by introducing hybrid drivetrains to models it promised to sell exclusively with battery power. Yet it has done away with diesel for 2024
Ford has gone from 13 different diesel options in 2015 to just two this year. It instead is ramping up production of EVs, like the Explorer (pictured)
Peugeot is another car manufacturer to significantly reduce its diesel availability. It has just two oil burners in its ranks in 2024 – in 2015 it had 11
Other popular car makes have downed their diesel availability to just one or two models in 2024.
Ford has gone from 13 different diesel options in 2015 to just two this year, while Peugeot has downgraded from 11 models to only a couple.
Kia and Renault, which a decade ago offer a selection of diesels, are also down to only one vehicle in their ranges this year.
As for the brands still backing diesel, Mercedes-Benz offers 13 models with oil burners under the bonnet (though this is down from 16 in 2015), Audi still has eight diesels across its range (11 in 2015) and Land Rover is still heavily reliant on the fuel type with seven diesel-powered vehicles – that’s up from six a decade earlier.
The interactive chart below shows how car brands have dramatically culled diesel engines from their ranges over the last decade:
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