Drivers are waiting up to six months to receive new petrol cars after ordering them, according to industry data.
Motorists wanting to lease a new car are facing waiting times measured in months after they place their orders, according to a guide compiled by ALD Automotive Leaseplan.
Data suggests that delivery times for new petrol or diesel Volkswagens are now 25 per cent longer than for the German car maker’s electric models.
While delivery times for new electric Audis have improved, falling by nearly two-thirds over the last year, waiting periods for fossil-fuelled vehicles have not changed since August 2023.
Delivery times appear to have changed in the wake of the legally binding zero-emission (ZEV) mandate introduced by Boris Johnson and implemented this year. It says car makers can be fined £15,000 per vehicle unless 22 per cent of new cars sold by the end of the year are electrically powered.
Robert Forrester, chief executive of car dealer chain Vertu Motors, said on Monday that some manufacturers were holding back petrol and diesel models in the hope of meeting this year’s EV quota. He did not name any car makers.
“In some franchises, there’s a restriction on the supply of petrol cars and hybrid cars, which is actually where the demand is,” Vertu boss Mr Forrester said on Monday.
“It’s almost as if we can’t supply the cars that people want, but we’ve got plenty of the cars that maybe they don’t want.”
Three-week average wait
Car makers have denied holding back vehicles but Mr Forrester’s comments will open up a debate about how the ZEV mandate is affecting the automotive market.
Data compiled by ALD Automotive Leaseplan suggests that waiting times for popular new cars such as the Nissan Juke and the Jaguar F-Pace were more than six months long in August this year.
Its data also suggested the waiting time for buying a new ICE Peugeot was four weeks, versus a three-week average wait for its EV models.
Ordering a petrol-engine Volkswagen Touareg on a lease contract through the retailer could result in a waiting time of 19 weeks or nearly 5 months. In contrast, delivery of a similar VW ID4 electric sports utility vehicle (SUV) could take three months.
Separate delivery waiting time data from Carwow, a car buyers’ price comparison website, suggested that average waits across all major brands have decreased since last year.
Waiting times for petrol or diesel VWs stood at 7 weeks in August 2023, according to Carwow’s data. By June this year that had fallen to 5 weeks, although the 4-week wait for a new EV remained static over the same period.
Audi, which is owned by the same company as the VW brand, slashed delivery times for its EVs from nearly 3 months down to one month in June. Over the same period, petrol and diesel buyers were left waiting for an average of 6 weeks.
Last year there were 1.9 million cars sold and around 1.8 million were leased to companies and consumers alike in the UK, according to industry data.