RobotBelt Monthly Auto Tracker — United Kingdom — September 2026

1. The Ranking

2. Three Signals

Signal 1

• Fact: Chinese brands took 23.3% of UK registrations in September 2026, and 18.2% even without MG.
• Read: A year earlier the same bloc held 12.4%. The share has almost doubled in twelve months, and the ex-MG line is climbing just as fast, so the old ‘it is only MG’ caveat no longer holds.

Signal 2

• Fact: The Chery group (Chery, Jaecoo, Omoda and the new Lepas badge) reached 32,830 units combined, more than Volkswagen’s 25,972 and enough to make it the largest carmaker in Britain in September.
• Read: These are three or four badges most British buyers still read as separate names. Added together they out-sold the biggest single legacy marque, and a year ago the same group moved 12,099 cars. Nobody in Wolfsburg modelled a 170% year.

Signal 3

• Fact: BYD registered 20,140 units to finish as the No.2 brand overall, while the Jaecoo 7 became the UK’s best-selling car at 10,814, ahead of the Tesla Model 3 and the Ford Puma.
• Read: A Chinese brand has never sat this high in the UK standings, and a Chinese model has never topped the national chart. Tesla, meanwhile, roared back with 15,875 units, up 98.6%, so September was growth across the board rather than one legacy name collapsing.

3. The Take

Britain’s car market just posted its tenth straight month of growth, 350,536 registrations, the strongest September since 2017. Underneath the healthy headline, the China bloc did something it had never done before. Chinese brands took 23.3% of the market in September 2026 (18.2% without MG), up from 12.4% a year earlier. The share has almost doubled in twelve months, and the ex-MG number is rising just as fast, which means the line that used to explain the whole thing away no longer works.

The most telling figure was not a single brand. It was 32,830. That is Chery, Jaecoo, Omoda and the new Lepas badge added together, which is what they are. On that basis the Chery group was the largest carmaker in Britain in September, ahead of Volkswagen (25,972), ahead of Ford, ahead of every German name. A year earlier the same group sold 12,099 cars. The sub-badge strategy that looks like four competitors in a showroom is one company, and it just out-sold the biggest legacy marque in the country.

BYD did the part the headlines noticed. 20,140 units, the No.2 brand overall behind only Volkswagen and ahead of Kia and MG. Its Sealion 7 and Seal took third and fourth in the electric charts. And the Jaecoo 7, a Chery-built SUV that borrows the Range Rover silhouette, became the UK’s best-selling car at 10,814, ahead of the Tesla Model 3 and the Ford Puma. A Chinese model had never topped the British monthly chart, and two Chinese nameplates now sit in the top ten (the Jaecoo 7 and the MG HS).

Do not read this as legacy collapse. Tesla bounced back hard, 15,875 units, up 98.6% year on year, its strongest UK month in more than a year. The September surge was broad based, powered by the new 76-plate change and the government’s Electric Car Grant. The difference is who is capturing the growth. The Chinese bloc took 81,776 cars. The Korean brands combined (Kia, Hyundai, Genesis) took 28,511. China is now close to three times the size of Korea in a market where, two years ago, it was a rounding error.

Watch the policy risk, not the trend. Britain still charges Chinese-built cars the standard 10% import duty and has not copied the EU’s anti-subsidy tariffs, which is exactly why the China bloc is growing faster here than on the continent. Reports on 5 October that ministers are weighing tariffs of up to 45% are the real swing factor. The question for 2027 is whether London follows Brussels, because the curve above was built on a tariff gap that may be about to close.