Mitsubishi's Outlander PHEV is the UK's best-selling plug-in car, with official figures from the Department for Transport (DfT) also showing that the Nissan Leaf remains the UK's most popular pure-EV.

 

The two plug-in models have been at the top of the sales charts for some time now, and combined make up more than 40% of all UK plug-in car sales.

 

Considering that the DfT's figures are released almost three months after each financial quarter, it is practically certain that PHEV Mitsubishi has sold the additional 600 units needed to reach the 30,000 barrier in the past two and a half months.

 

Mitsubishi is stretching its lead at the top of the sales charts since the Nissan Leaf sold around 850 units between the beginning of April and end of June 2017, compared to Mitsubishi's near more than 1,700 Outlander PHEV sales.

 

The Outlander PHEV not only tops of the overall UK sales table, but is also in first place for both Q2 sales and 2017 to date figures. The Leaf was only in fourth place for Q2 2017, beaten by both the BMW 330e (2nd Q2), and Mercedes Benz C 350e (3rd Q2).

 

The Leaf is the second best-selling model 2017 to date though, with the drop off in registrations for Q2 likely to be attributed to the news that the second-generation model was due for launch, and buyers holding out to find out details on the new version. The top four for 2017 to date contains the same models as Q2, with the BMW 330e in 3rd place, and the Mercedes C 350e in 4th.

 

Because of the relative newness of the 330e, it's BMW stablemate - the i3 - remains in 5th place in terms of overall UK plug-in car sales. Considering the BMW 330e only had sales figure reported from Q1 of 2016, it is a remarkable rise in popularity for the executive PHEV saloon over the past 15 months.

 

The top 10 best-selling plug-in cars are:

 

• Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

• Nissan Leaf

• Mercedes Benz C 350e

• BMW i3

• BMW 330e

• Tesla Model S

• Renault Zoe

• Volkswagen Golf GTE

• Volvo XC90 TwinEngine

• Audi A3 e-tron

New entrants in the latest set of figures include two Volvo's - the XC60 T8 and V90 T8 - and the Mini Countryman Cooper S E (all three PHEVs), while the new Smart range has also started recording sales for the fortwo coupe, fortwo cabrio, and forfour pure-electric models.