Jaecoo 7 outsells Puma, Qashqai and Corsa in January

The Jaecoo 7 was the UK’s second-best-selling new automobile final month, when its 4059 registrations proved sufficient to beat long-established front-runners such because the Ford Puma, Nissan Qashqai and Vauxhall Corsa.

Certainly, in response to knowledge issued by the Society of Motor Producers and Merchants (SMMT), it was solely 616 items behind the Kia Sportage, the top-ranked automobile in January.

Though the SMMT cautions that January is “not essentially indicative of the complete 12 months development” as a result of it’s “usually a lower-volume month”, the figures spotlight Jaecoo’s shocking ascent into the UK’s mainstream, having solely launched right here in January 2025.

It marks one other sturdy month for the newcomer, with the 7 having already overwhelmed the Nissan Qashqai to sixth place in November 2025.

It now stays to be seen whether or not Jaecoo can maintain that momentum all through 2026, or whether or not the standard prime sellers – such because the Puma, final 12 months’s hottest new automobile – will return to their traditional gross sales success.

A complete of 144,127 new vehicles have been registered within the UK final month, a rise on the 139,345 recorded in January 2025. This, SMMT chief government Mike Hawes stated, reveals the nation is “constructing again momentum” after a difficult few years. 

Hawes warned that the tempo of the transition to electrical vehicles could also be slowing, as EV registrations rose solely marginally 12 months on 12 months, to 29,654 vehicles. That meant their market share really fell, from 21.3% in January 2025 to twenty.6% final month.

The Renault 5 was the UK’s best-selling electrical automobile at retail, in response to the French model.

Pure-petrol and diesel vehicles continued their protracted downfall. The previous powertrain now represents fewer than half of all vehicles offered, with its market share falling from 50.3% to 47.7%. Diesel, in the meantime, dropped from a 6.2% share to five.5%.

Common hybrids skilled a small bump in gross sales, with their market share rising from 13.2% to 13.4%.

The largest beneficial properties have been made by plug-in hybrids, which went from a 9.0% share to 12.9%, buoyed by sturdy gross sales of extra inexpensive Chinese language fashions such because the BYD Seal U and MG HS.

The UK’s best-selling vehicles in January 2026