With half of motorists (50%) citing ‘fuel type’ as a top consideration when changing their car, we wanted to understand how willing car buyers were to change fuel type for their next vehicle.*
To do this, we analysed our extensive part-exchange data from 2024 to find out what fuel type was most popular with motorists, and to what extent drivers are switching to plug-powered vehicles.
How important is fuel type to motorists when buying a car?
When looking across all fuel types, our data revealed that just 40% of motorists chose to stick with the same fuel type when part-exchanging with Motorpoint in 2024.
| Current vehicle’s fuel type | % choosing to stick with the same fuel type |
| Petrol | 84.2% |
| Self-charging Hybrid | 33.6% |
| Electric | 32.0% |
| Plug-in Hybrid | 26.2% |
| Diesel | 21.4% |
While most car buyers were willing to consider alternative fuel types when car shopping, petrol owners were the most likely to repurchase the same fuel type.
In fact, just 16% of petrol owners who part-exchanged a car with Motorpoint last year opted for something different, with:
- 6.6% buying a diesel car
- 4.2% purchasing a self-charging hybrid
- 3.1% opting for a plug-in hybrid
- 1.9% purchasing an electric vehicle (EV)
Is petrol the most popular choice for all motorists?
When it came to changing fuel type, we found that petrol still dominated with almost half of motorists (48%) choosing to swap from their current fuel type to petrol.
While diesel drivers were the most likely to switch, petrol remained the most popular alternative across all fuel types – suggesting that a portion of car owners might not be ready to move away from fuel-powered cars.
| Current vehicle’s fuel type | % choosing to swap to petrol |
| Diesel | 67.0% |
| Hybrid | 47.1% |
| Plug-in Hybrid | 42.1% |
| Electric | 36.7% |
Beyond personal preference, there are a range of other factors that could be influencing consumer habits, including:
- The volume of petrol vehicles available on the used car market far outweighs other fuel types, making them an easily accessible and attractive option for motorists.
- Used petrol cars tend to be more affordable than their diesel or plug-powered counterparts, meaning motorists can often get a larger or higher-spec car for the same price.
As manufacturers start to fit hybrid engines more widely to meet increasingly stringent emission targets, it’s reasonable to assume we’ll see the number of motorists opting for pure-petrol vehicles start to decrease over the coming years.
How willing are motorists to make the move to self-charging hybrids?
While our data suggests that the number of diesel and petrol owners shifting to self-charging hybrids is still relatively small, we anticipate that this will naturally grow as more self-charging hybrid models enter the used car market and we move towards price parity with non-hybrid engines.
With the re-fuelling process the same for motorists, there would be very little friction for anyone making the switch – helping to ease motorists' apprehension.
| Current vehicle’s fuel type | % choosing to swap to a self-charging hybrid |
| Plug-in Hybrid | 7.9% |
| Electric | 5.5% |
| Diesel | 4.8% |
| Petrol | 4.2% |
It was interesting to see that plug-in hybrid owners were the most likely to switch to a self-charging hybrid vehicle, suggesting that these buyers perhaps weren’t making the most of the extra electric driving capacity of the car they were trading in.
It’s important to note that two-fifths (41%) of buyers with plug-powered cars chose to stick with plug power, suggesting that once the transition is made, a significant number of drivers are happy with their EVs and plug-in hybrids.
What about plug-in hybrids and EVs?
While EV owners tend to stick with EVs, those who swapped were over twice as likely to opt for a plug-in hybrid than any other fuel type.
Having already invested in home charging infrastructure, it’s reasonable to assume that they don’t want to lose the ability to recharge at home while now having the option to refuel on long journeys.
| Current vehicle’s fuel type | % choosing to swap to a plug-in hybrid |
| Electric | 14.8% |
| Self-charging Hybrid | 6.0% |
| Diesel | 5.0% |
| Petrol | 4.2% |
Interestingly, our data showed that the reverse was also true, with motorists exchanging a plug-in hybrid most likely to choose to purchase an EV.
This is likely because they already have a good understanding of driving on battery power and are confident that their driving habits won’t be heavily impacted by the move to electric.
| Current vehicle’s fuel type | % opting for an EV |
| Plug-in Hybrid | 9.4% |
| Self-charging Hybrid | 3.9% |
| Petrol | 1.9% |
| Diesel | 1.7% |
Are motorists making the permanent move to electric vehicles?
According to our data, a third of EV owners (32%) opted for another electric vehicle when part-exchanging their current car at Motorpoint in 2024, but this doesn’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t account for the popularity of EVs on the brand-new market and doesn’t account for the large group of buyers trading new or nearly new fuel-powered cars for electric cars.
Electric vehicles have now reached price parity with their petrol and diesel counterparts on the used car market and, in many cases, now undercut them. That means opting for a used electric car can be a great option for motorists looking to purchase a battery-powered vehicle.
Looking at our sales data from 2024, we found that motorists who bought a used EV from Motorpoint saved £19,755 on average, compared to buying the same car brand new.
Buying a used EV helps motorists shield themselves from the steep initial depreciation all cars face when brand new.
Having explored how EV depreciation compares to other fuel types, we found that EV values drop more steeply than fuel-powered cars in the first 12 months.
Methodology
To explore how important fuel type was to motorists' decision-making, Motorpoint compared part-exchange fuel type with purchase fuel type.
This was done using Motorpoint’s part-exchange data from January 1st to December 31st, 2024. Data collected and analysed in January 2025.
* Research conducted by SurveyGoo on behalf of Motorpoint with a sample of 2,022 UK car owners. Data was collected in December 2024. All statistics and findings have been rounded to the nearest whole number.
** Average savings calculated using Motorpoint’s sales data from 2024.
