It would normally be a time for celebration for incumbent brands. After some difficult years, UK new registrations topped the 2m mark in 2025. That’s the first time that benchmark has been hit since the pandemic, and it would suggest growth is taking the market back to better days.
There’s a big problem, though. A massive one. The incumbents are not alone in enjoying these green shoots of success. There are new entrants, most notably from China, who are leading on affordability, performance and technology.
In just a couple of years, Chinese brands have gone from a standing start to accounting for 10% of new car sales in 2025. Estimates suggest they will account for 30% of the market by 2030. It may sound a huge number but they’re already there in EVs – 30% of new battery powered cars sold, are Chinese brands.
To put that growth into perspective, it took Hyundai 27 years to get a 2% market share in the UK. Kia managed it in 18. Fast forward to the modern day and BYD has just achieved the same market share in only two years. OMODA and JAECOO have done the same in just nine months.
Many observers will look at the price and specifications for an explanation. But that’s only part of the story. The deeper underlying trend that auto marketers must grapple with is stark. Loyalty is evaporating.
The extent to which UK car customers are leaving behind their old favourite marques vary. Google data suggests three in four are not sticking with the same brand as last time. Auto Trader figures suggest slightly less disloyalty – 44% are loyal in petrol but just 22% in EV. Whichever figures you trust, at least half of all petrol buyers are, or intend to, switch brands with their next new car, and nearly four in five will change brand when they buy a new EV.
What’s driving disloyalty
There’s a combination of reasons why UK motorists are starting to turn their backs on previously trusted auto brands. Clearly there is a financial motivation to try new makers. After fifty years of annual growth in household disposable income peaking, at 3.5% per year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reports a decline in families’spending power between 2019 to 2024. It blames tax rises made against a backdrop of the pandemic and the energy shock of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Growth is returning in 2025 to 2029, it predicts, but only by 0.4%.
For the first time in more than fifty years, households have found themselves in a five-year period of having less to spend at exactly the same time as new entrants are offering attractive price points accompanied by generous technology specs.
This is only half the story, though. Consumers are feeling the pinch, but the new car market is growing again, nearing pre-pandemic sales levels. The deeper issue is, UK consumers are attracted to new entrants because loyalty is declining. If buyers still loved their existing brand, they could stick with the marque and pick a more affordable model. As it is, they’re ditching their previous favourite brands.
Research from Forza Finance suggests consumers are turning away from traditional brands because they feel ripped off. When they have already paid what they see as a high price for a high-performance car, more than nine in ten, 92%, feel ripped off by being sold subscriptions for extra features, such as turning on heated seats. Often these subscriptions are required because premium luxury brands have been lowering specifications and then charging a fee to add back features.
More than two in three, 69%, are so enraged they will never buy a car from a brand they feel is adding on unnecessary extras for a monthly fee. Customer experience is also being impacted by luxury cars cutting back on quality, such as using cheaper plastic materials in the cabin, which makes consumers baulk at being charged high prices for lower quality cars. It is little wonder consumer buying behaviour is changing. Customers naturally dislike being cheated by extra charges for a range of ‘packs’. This pricing tactic has already been dubbed the ‘Porsche Tax’ with Automotive World calling on brands to stop making customers feel like they’ve been ‘nickel-and-dimed’ and instead focus on providing honest value.
Disloyal routes to market
Google has a telling statistic to underline this shift away from brand to wider research of the market. Last year it reported that car searches were up 13% on previous levels. On YouTube car related viewing was up 25%. This should have been good news for incumbent brands, but the harsh reality is, the spike was led by searches for finance enquiries. At the same time, generic searches terms, such as “best SUV” are dominating rather than “best VW”.
The other major new development is a change in buying options beyond the traditional dealer route. Three in four UK employers now offer the option of buying a new car through a salary sacrifice scheme, typically by choosing a model from a list. This purchase journey accounted for a quarter of a million new sales in 2025, up 125% from the year before. Additionally, depending on car type, the same 20% to 30% of new cars are acquired through lease. Often these involve online specialists where users pick a car from a list.
So, what do customers want?
Deloitte research names the UK as the most disloyal auto market in the world. It shows that customer attitudes are changing to point where only 39% are purchasing their current vehicle from the same brand as before. Today’s UK consumer is prioritising quality (60%), vehicle performance (54%) and price (52%) in their final decision.
If the decline in loyalty was purely down to finance, price would surely top the list. However, it doesn’t. The very characteristics one might imagine incumbents would be associated with, quality and performance, are leading decisions and those purchases are taking consumers away from previously favoured brands.
Digging deeper, a trend becomes clear. When Auto Trader researched what UK consumers want, there’s a glaring omission that impacts loyalty. Combustion engine purchases prioritise; lifestyle needs, running costs, brand and upfront costs. Electric vehicle buyers have similar top priorities, but the similarity soon ends. They are planning a purchase by looking at running costs, lifestyle needs, environmental impact and tech, in that order.
Put simply, brand is not a major concern for them, and it’s less of a concern for petrol and diesel customers than lifestyle and running costs. It’s little wonder, then, that the decline in loyalty is most clearly visible in 30% of new electric car registrations coming from Chinese brands.
What can brands do better to encourage loyalty?
Double down on heritage and emotion
Cars are not just bought, they’re felt. There’s always been an emotional connection between a brand and its owners. Successful marques have always known this and focussed on embodying a particular emotion. Think Volvo, and safety is front of mind. Jeep brings a sense of adventure, MINI is playful fun and BMW is all about a feeling of driving excellence.
These emotional connections matter, they’re built up over many years and are central to how brands are perceived and received. So too is heritage. No company has a right to show up in a market and expect to be taken seriously in the longer term if they cannot build a sense of history. What roots does the brand have, and what emotional reaction should that create to build a loyal bond with drivers.
Heritage doesn’t mean many decades of history, but it does at least mean a backstory that explains where the brand comes from. Is it a history of bringing luxury SUVs to those who can afford it, like Range Rover, or maybe its Ferrari’s heritage in motorsport. Perhaps it’s a heritage based firmly in providing value to the masses, like Ford or the reliability and attention to detail of Japanese engineering, like Honda.
A common criticism of incumbent car manufacturers is they have forgotten about their heritage and the intertwined emotional connection. YouGov research has found around half of the UK car-buying market, 52%, feels that, since all the changes in brand names and model numbers, they now lack the necessary brand insight to make an informed purchasing decision. At the same time, though, 69% can name at least one new market entrant.
In the rush to embrace an electric future, it seems that traditional brands have tried to reinvent themselves to a point where at least half the UK market is confused. They don’t understand the new nomenclature or logos, and some of the heritage, recognisability and emotional connection has been lost.
Focus on long-term mental availability
When it comes to branding insight, there are few better schools of thought to look at than the world-famous Ehrenberg Bass Institute. It’s guiding principles are that brands are successful through building mental availability, by reminding consumers (who may only repurchase every three to six years) that they exist and what attributes they should be associated with. It’s worth noting the Institute estimates that, at any given time, 95% of the car buying market is not considering a new purchase. Building mental availability for the long term is essential for when they are.
A common criticism of the car industry is that it can concentrate too much on the digital side of the customer journey. Those last couple of weeks when people are in-market for a car and researching widely are crucially important, but they should not take away from a constant dedication to building mental availability, so a brand is known, instantly recalled and considered on a short list of research options.
Connect with customers
The disloyalty UK consumers are showing towards incumbent brands has not happened instantly. As long as ten years ago, Beehive Research warned that loyalty was waning because customers felt they weren’t being valued. Having a strong brand is no longer enough, it warned all the way back in 2016, that “brands are only as strong as their weakest touchpoint”.
That means customer communications and operational support must be joined up to offer a seamless experience, and that must extend beyond the sales process. Customers want to feel seen, even after they’ve left the showroom. This goes beyond customer service communications, which most realise are sales pitches in disguise, it extends to showing a brand cares.
Sometimes this can mean product offerings. Long-term warranties and inclusive servicing are an obvious way to show customers they are valued and taken care of, but so too are fostering those emotional connections with the brand. Something as simple as using a customer database to send out a ‘Happy Birthday’ card or email (Rolls Royce is famous for phoning customers on their birthdays). Perhaps that database could also be used to send an email celebrating the anniversary of buying a car, rather than using the date solely as a prompt to send out a pitch for an MOT or service (useful though reminders are).
Driving clubs and fan clubs are another good way to keep customers involved with a brand. In retail these often involve VIP nights and first-look at new models and access to designers. Could the same being be applied to car brands where cherished customers get access to events, launches and ‘meet the designer’ type evenings?
Think of O2. It’s a mobile operator that realises people only change phones every other year. To remain relevant in the meantime, it puts itself at the heart of their entertainment and shopping lives with its O2 Moment app. It’s an example of being part of a customer’s life beyond purchase which makes churning a far more difficult decision.
Next steps
Customers are more disloyal and frankly, they have a right to be. New car brands are the symptom more than the cause. Car companies need to pay attention to brand and how they connect emotionally with consumers. 5 points to consider are:
1 No more ‘nickel-and-diming’
No more ripping people off – customers have always expected they should get a good range of tech rather than pay extra, and that’s exactly what new rivals are doing. Subscriptions should only be considered if they truly add honest value.
2 Double down on emotion and heritage
People buy into how a brand makes them feel, it’s a statement of how a customer views their worth – those new logos, brand names and model numbering systems are confusing the public. Building emotional connection is far more rewarding than renaming models. Heritage is crucial, it empowers a brand to tell stories that hold meaning for customers.
4 Delight customers more often
Happy Birthday or Car Anniversary – the little things mean a lot. Contacts do not have to be about an upsell opportunity.
5 Keep your customer close
Long term loyalty comes from long term contact – what driving clubs and VIP evening invite opportunities are there? Look at how brands in other industries have extended schemes beyond their product category to offer entertainment and leisure loyalty offers.
About Juice
Juice is an UK creative agency helping ambitious brands build stronger connections with customers through brand strategy, content and digital experiences.
