Electric, hybrid vehicles continue strong growth in Europe

Brussels – The market share of electrically-chargeable cars continued to expand across the European Union during the third quarter of 2021, at the expense of petrol and diesel vehicles. 

Both battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids nearly doubled their share during the three-month period to acquire 9.8% and 9.1% of the market, said the European automobile manufacturers’ association (ACEA) 22 Oct.

Registrations of hybrid electric passenger cars accounted for 20.7% of the total EU market during the third quarter, surpassing diesel to become the second most popular powertrain option in the region. 

Overall, demand for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) saw a 31.5% increase with almost half a million units sold. 

ACEA linked the growth to an extra boost from the central European markets, where demand for hybrid cars grew by 69.3% from July to September.

Conventional petrol and diesel cars continued to lose ground over the period, “almost completely absorbing the impact of the overall decline in car registrations of the last three months,” ACEA added.

Sales of petrol cars contracted by 35.1% to reach 855,476 units, with their share shrinking from 47.6% in the third quarter of 2020 to 39.5% of the market this year.

Diesel’s market share fell by more than 10 percentage points, from 27.8% to 17.6%, during the same period. 

Registrations of new diesel cars more than halved across the EU region, going from 769,922 units sold last year to 381,473 in the third quarter of 2021.

During the third quarter of the year, demand for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) increased by 56.7%, totalling 212,582 units. 

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) also expanded their share of EU car sales, with registrations rising by 42.6% to 197,300 units. 

Sales of natural gas vehicles saw a substantial 48.8% drop during the third quarter, mainly affected by decreasing demand in Italy.