A 9% decline has been registered last month by the UK true fleet market, which delivered the worst March figures since 2014. Overall, UK car registrations were 3.4% down in the month, with the only growth coming from the rental sector.

The strongest true fleet performance was registered by Volkswagen, despite posting a 1% decline in true fleet sales in March, showed the analysis from Dataforce. Following Volkswagen were Mercedes and BMW, both with strong performances of + 7.2% and + 13.2% respectively.

Meanwhile, Vauxhall appears to be bearing the brunt of the downturn for the month. The company not only dropped six places into seventh but it also registered the highest decrease of 55.2%. Despite this, registrations for the Grandland X tripled.

Neither the diesel nor the petrol segment posted a positive March, but both hybrid (+ 6.7%) and electric (+ 98.9%) did. The top three electric cars in the true fleet marker were the Nissan Leaf, BMW i3 and the Jaguar I‑Pace.

While diesel posted a double-digit deduction of 21.9%, Dataforce said there might be some positive results coming soon. The first RDE2 compliant cars will arrive in the UK this month, meaning that company car drivers can avoid the higher BIK (Benefit-in-Kind) band for Diesel cars which meet these stricter emission standards.

“It remains to be seen whether this will help to put the brakes on the diesel decline but it is certainly good news for end users who can now remove the arbitrary penalty the Government had applied without outlining the standard required for RDE2 compliant cars,” commented Richard Worrow from Dataforce.