Running out of cars sounds like a manufacturer's dream, but the realities are tough. 

MG, the Chinese-owned British heritage car maker, is living that reality.

It has seen unprecedented growth in the UK since 2021. Between 2018 and 2025 MG went from a 0.36 per cent market share to a 4.21 per cent share. 

MG is now an established top 10 brand and last year saw European sales increase 30 per cent, surpassing 300,000 pan-Europe sales.

Now the manufacturer is at the point where 'they don't have surplus' stock. Guy Pigounakis, commercial director at MG Motor UK, laid the situation bare to us below... 

20,000 cars arriving: MG's current supply situation

'We finished number two manufacturer in the UK in December – the best result we've ever had,' Guy says.

'We went into Q4 tight on some of our high-volume cars. We've come out into January desperately, desperately short of stock.

'Our big volume car is the HS Hybrid [SUV]. And we virtually ran out of those in December. And because we finished strongly in December, it meant we came into January with virtually no stock as well. It has had a significant impact on us.

'We've got about 20,000 cars arriving in the next three weeks. Because today, we've probably got the lowest stock levels we've had in the country for the last four or five years.

'And we're planning on selling a lot more cars this year than we were four or five years ago. 'So, we're addressing it. But certainly, we will continue to be tight on supplying certain key models for the next six months, at least.'

The MG HS is a five-seater family SUV. The 2024 version comes with a full-suite of safety tech, a 12.3-inch touchscreen, a premium feeling interior, a 507-litre boot - and starts from £29,245. 

The previous HS topped the UK best-sellers list in Janaury 2023, becoming the first MG model to be a best-seller in Britain. 

What's causing MG to run out of cars?

Guy explains that part of the reason why MG UK will be short of cars 'is down to European demand, which has just exploded'.

'We've got European markets growing almost as rapidly as we [MG UK] did two or three years ago, very heavily orientated towards hybrids because of the EU Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations.

'MG suffers significantly in mainland Europe due to the tariff situation – we can't build enough of certain high-volume derivatives to meet demand in every single market.

'Our production capacity is struggling to keep up.'

MG Europe secured 78,505 registrations during the opening three months of 2025, representing a 33.5 per cent increase over the same period in 2024 when 58,800 vehicle registrations were announced.

MG's overall market share also grew during the first quarter of 2025 compared to the previous period in 2024, rising to 2.3 per cent compared to 1.7 per cent the previous year.

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While the demand might be coming from Europe, the issue is that manufacturers, particularly Chinese ones, are planning production in plants halfway around the world.

And everyone is gunning for the biggest chunk of limited stock, Guy says: 'Everybody puts their best forecast in. Two weeks into that forecast, your sales pattern is significantly different to your forecast.

'Every manufacturer has the same argument: every market has to fight for the maximum supply of cars it can get.

'Every market is trying to put the best case forward about why it should get the lion's share of what production you can get. And sometimes we win that, sometimes we don't.

'We will have enough cars to meet our business plan in Q1. 'It's the opportunities to go beyond that, which I think will be challenging.'

MG isn't alone – this is an industry-wide issue.

'We're not the only ones,' Guy points out.

'I'm not saying we've lost thousands of sales because we couldn't supply the cars. 

'Other manufacturers have supply issues too – some of our direct competitors are quoting 15 or 20 weeks now for supply.

'While we lose out on some areas, we probably gain a little bit in others as well.

'I think they probably cost us a couple of thousand sales last year, and in January, it certainly cost us the best part of 1,000 registrations.

'The delivery of 20,000 cars in a few weeks' time will put us in a fairly strong position for March, where we are catching up a bit of the lost opportunity in January and February.'

How are current supply issues different to COVID stock issues

Post-pandemic, a global lack of parts such as semiconductors disrupted car manufacturing.

Factory closures in the height of lockdowns and increased demand for computer chips related to higher demand for tech products put a stranglehold on vehicle makers for over two years.

The crisis in Ukraine, a major hub for automotive parts, as well as lockdowns in China and severe parts shortages also magnified a slowdown in vehicle outputs in the UK.

'Post-COVID running out of cars was the norm. There was nothing unusual about that,' Guy confirms.

In fact, MG fared better than other manufacturers.

'The Covid situation was very much semiconductor driven,' Guy confirms.

'We did particularly well in that environment, because we found workarounds to overcome some of the shortages that some manufacturers had.

'So, whilst we had issues with supply, they weren't perhaps as bad as some of our competitors, which certainly helped establish us in the marketplace with volume, at the very least.

'Supply issues today are a completely different set of circumstances.'

How the ZEV mandate is causing supply issues for manufacturers today

Semiconductors aren't the issue now.

Instead, it's the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate that's causing a headache for manufacturers.

The ZEV mandate requires car makers to sell an increasing number of electric vehicles (EV) each year until the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel motors in 2035.

To hit their targets, manufacturers need to earn credits. While this is done primarily by selling electric vehicles, they can earn credits by reducing the CO2 emissions of the non-ZEVs that they sell.

Failure to meet the ZEV mandate sales targets can result in huge fines for auto makers of £15,000 per model below the required threshold.

Keir Starmer relaxed ZEV targets in April 2025, including giving hybrids – both plug-in and conventional – a stay of execution until 2035.

While targets thresholds have remained the same – 33 per cent this year and 80 per cent by 2030 – extra leniency has been granted: Manufacturers can offset sales of non-EVs if they exceed their CO2 reduction targets and can now use a credit-transfer system until 2029.

And yet this has gone little way to help car makers forecast sales.

Guy says that in terms of supply and demand, nearly every manufacturer has the same problem: 'We're always trying to match forward production with sales forecasts with the ZEV mandate.

'If I was to look at something like a petrol version of the MG3, for instance – we can never quite meet demand of that car, because we can't afford to sell too many of them, because it upsets our CO2 position.'

Electric cars are harder to sell

'We can shift our focus away from cars that are in short supply to cars that we have more supply of, which are almost invariably electric cars.

'Electric cars can be quite challenging to sell in the volumes that we need to sell them in; volumes needed to meet the ZEV mandate.

'We would back off marketing certain products and emphasize our marketing spend on others to try and shift demand away from one and into the other.

'You can address that with incentives and dealer bonuses as well, to try and take pressure off faster-moving stock and focus it on the slower-moving stock.

'But fundamentally you don't want to turn a customer away from a car.'

Chinese car sales in the UK are booming

China made huge in-roads in the UK car market last year. 

Registration figures show almost one in ten new models sold in Britain in 2025 were produced by Chinese brands.

Of the 2,020,520 new model sales recorded last year, 9.7 per cent of these were cars from Chinese brands. This represents around 196,000 passenger vehicles.  

This is up from 98,000 registrations in 2024. 

In 2025, around one in eight new electric vehicles (EVs) had a Chinese company's badge on its bonnet, up from one in 12 the year previous, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

There are now over a dozen different Chinese brands now on sale in the UK and a lot more brands arriving in 2026.

While BYD, known as the 'Tesla killer', makes the most headlines, it's actually MG -whose parent group is the Chinese state-owned SAIC - that retains its crown as the UK's most popular Chinese choice.

MG sold 85,155 cars in the UK last year - 4.4 per cent more than in 2024 - and is the 10th favourite brand by sales volumes, accounting to 4.2 per cent of the new model market.

It's aformentioned MG HS was the best-selling standalone Chinese car, amassing 30,191 registrations in 2025, making it the eighth most popular new model sold last year.