Chinese brands have been the driving force behind PHEVs’ booming sales
Plug-in hybrids took record 11% UK market share in 2025, thanks to 35% sales rise – but their future is in doubt
Plug-in hybrids are on a tear in the UK, their sales rising 35% last year to capture a record 11% of the market, but a host of questions remain about the drivetrain’s long-term viability.
The PHEV has long been seen as a useful bridge between the ease of ICE cars and the refinement and emissions reduction of EVs, with new models having an electric-only driving range of 80 miles or more.
PHEV sales hit 225,143 in 2025, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, as Chinese brands increased their share to account for one out of every four sales in the year.
The BYD Seal U topped the UK PHEV charts for the year, followed by the Jaecoo 7 and the MG HS in fifth, behind the Volkswagen Tiguan and Ford Kuga.
And more Chinese PHEVs are coming. BYD has just launched the cheaper Sealion 5 compact SUV to directly rival the Jaecoo 7, starting at £29,995. And Geely has begun sales of its Starray EM-i compact SUV, which has an 84-mile EV range at the top end, with prices starting at £29,990.
Other Chinese PHEVs expected to do well this year are Chery’s newly launched Tiggo SUV range, with the Tiggo 7 compact costing from – you guessed it – £29,995.
The advent of the Chinese has slashed the entry cost of a drivetrain that had been largely the preserve of the premium brands. They still play an important role: BMW was the second-largest PHEV brand last year, behind Volkswagen. But volume models last year overtook premium ones, with a 74% sales increase, while premiums slid back slightly (largely due to a drop in JLR sales).
The Chinese may be the headline story, but Volkswagen was the largest PHEV brand overall. It more than doubled its sales, thanks to big growth in PHEV versions of the Tiguan (in third place) and the Golf (in seventh).
The question now is now manufacturers react to changes in legislation.
The UK government plans to temporarily shield PHEVs from a new EU emissions standard called Euro 6e-bis. Designed to better reflect real world driving, this has forced all makers of PHEVs to rehomologate their cars for European sale.
The ‘easement’ ensures PHEVs are still a viable way to save tax for company car drivers in the UK. Business fleets have long propped up PHEVs sales in the UK and therefore helped car makers, which use PHEVs’ often unachievable but official fuel economy figures to help reduce their CO2 emissions burdens and lower their ZEV mandate targets. This will end in April 2028.
In reality, most car makers had been steadily increasing the size of the batteries in their PHEVs to ensure they weren’t whacked too hard by the changes in the EU.
After April 2028, the protection for PHEVs as company cars in the UK will all but disappear. From then, all cars officially emitting 1-50g/km of CO2 will fall into a single 18% tax band, instead of multiple rates according to electric-only range. EVs will move to 7%, up from 4% this year.
PHEVs remain in the firing line of green groups, who claim that the claimed emissions savings are illusory.
New analysis by Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a UK-based non-profit organisation, has found that PHEV drivers are likely spending nearly twice the amount of money to fuel their cars on petrol and electricity than that claimed by the manufacturers – £530 claimed, £985 in real life.
With all running costs taken into account, including purchase price, insurance and servicing, on average a PHEV actually costs £81 more to run a year than an equivalent petrol car.
That figure will go up if the government imposes its proposed eVED pay-per-mile tax on EVs and PHEVs, again from April 2028. Under the plans, PHEVs will incur 1.5p per mile – half the rate of EVs.
PHEVs will remain on sale after 2030 and could go beyond that if the UK government decides to follow the EU, which has opened the door to their sale after proposing to reduce the required CO2 reduction by 2035 on 2021 figures from 100% to 90%.
Range-extender (REx) EVs, in which combustion engines are installed in EV platforms to function as generators, could be one way to make PHEVs more acceptable to legislators, given the emphasis is on electric rather than the combustion engine, as it is with most current PHEVs.
Renault is one brand that has hinted that it will go that route for its next EV platform (underpinning the replacement Scenic and another compact car), but presently there are no REx EVs on sale in the UK, after Mazda pulled the MX-30 R-EV.
Currently the PHEV is hitting the sweet spot between usability, electrification, tax-efficiency and a general feeling of modernity, largely thanks to the Chinese and the Volkswagen Group. Whether that remains the case is up to the hands of the legislators.
