08 July 2018

Much has been said about the change to WLTP CO2 and mpg testing, but could one of the side effects be a surge in registrations this August?

We know that all cars built from 1 September will have to qualify for WLTP, however, until then manufacturers can (if they want) still build cars that qualify under the old NEDC regulations.

Cars built under the NEDC rules before the end of May have a year to be registered; no problem there.  However, those NEDC qualifying cars built in June, July and August must be registered before September.    As we know this has meant some manufacturers have just stopped producing NEDC qualifying vehicles and that has left a shortfall because the WLTP equivalents haven’t arrived yet.

The flip-side to this is that some car makers are gambling and still building NEDC cars – mainly because there’s fleet demand for these lower CO2 figured vehicles.  But if a manufacturer misjudges the demand there could be a glut of cars, all of which will need to have been registered by 31 August.

Obviously, there’s a few ways they can do this; push them to retailers, send them to daily rental, self-register the cars or do a very attractive fleet deal or two.  So, will the national sales companies have got it right, or will we see a surge at the end of August?  And if there is, will these pre-registered cars impact September new car sales?

Time will tell.

Tristan Young
Editorial Director
Auto Retail Network

Tags: NEDC, registrations, WLTP