As expected, 2022 proved to be a challenging year for light commercial vehicle registrations in the UK, with total numbers of all new vehicles with a gross vehicle weight up to 3,500kgs reaching 282,139 for the year. This represents a 20.6% decline compared with 2021. Also as predicted, supply chain problems for components such as semi-conductors were the principal reason for the decline.

All market segments registered a drop during the year. Vans under 2,000kg GVW registered the largest percentage decline at -56.1% with registrations falling back to 7,805 from 17,787 in 2021. This sector is mostly made up from car-derived vans and represented 2.7% of total registrations.

Following the trend of recent years, it was the heaviest LCVs – from 2,501kg to 3,500kg GVW – that took the largest share of the market with 74% of total registrations. This still represented a decline of 14.4%, compared with 2021, with vehicle numbers falling to 208,728 from 243,889.

One sector of the market that grew in 2022 was battery electric vans with registrations up 31.2% compared with 2021 to 16,744, (from 12,759). BEV market share also grew from 3.6% in 2021 to 5.9% in 2022. Although BEVs still represent a small percentage of the total LCV market, the total represents more than the total sale of 4x4s and vans up to 2,000kg GVW added together. The SMMT notes that despite the encouraging trend, the car market is growing faster, with BEV car models taking 16.6% of new registrations.

Charging challenges

The SMMT says that one of the barriers to growth is the public charging infrastructure, which it describes as: “Already insufficient for the number of plug-in vehicles already on the road and is generally geared towards cars rather than vans.” The organisation has repeated its call for a national van infrastructure plan that it first made in May last year.

Ford retained its position as the best-selling LCV manufacturer in 2022, with a total of 105,913 registrations, more than the total registrations of the second, third, fourth and fifth placed VW, Vauxhall, Mercedes and Peugeot added together. Even so Ford’s total was down 12.8% compared with 2021.

As the following chart shows, the only manufacturer in the top ten to register more vehicles in 2022 than 2021 was Isuzu, with registrations of the new D-Max forging ahead to 4,350 up from 3,688, a 17.95% increase.