News: New registrations surge 6.6% in July as driver aids become more popular

THE NEW car market continued its turbocharged trajectory in July with registrations up 6.6% to 172,907. The result led the industry to revise its year-end forecast to 2.45m registrations, up 8.1% on 2013.

The best-selling car in July, and so far this year, was the Ford Fiesta.

Dealers credited cheap finance deals and increasingly economical cars with the boost in demand. Meanwhile, in the wake of the government’s announcement last week of a £10m competition for UK cities to host trials of driverless cars, industry body the SMMT released figures showing how autonomous technology is attracting new car buyers, too.

Driver aids including active cruise control, self-parking and blind spot monitoring all experienced rapid rises in uptake between 2010 and 2013. Among the most popular were collision warning systems which in 2013 were available as an option on over 35% of new cars, compared with just over 5% in 2010.

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