The share of newly sold European cars that run on fossil fuels is decreasing. On the other hand, there was an increase in electric and hybrid cars during the past quarter. According to the European car industry association ACEA, about a third of new cars were (partly) electric.
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Every type of car was in higher demand between April and June than during the same period last year. ACEA points out that this is not a completely fair comparison, because residents of the European Union bought a car much less often in the second quarter of 2020 due to the corona crisis.
Petrol and diesel cars also increased in sales, but the combined market share of the two combustion engines shrank to just over 60 percent of all new cars. After the second quarter of last year, this was still about 70 percent. In the Netherlands, the number of new diesels decreased by 8 percent compared to a year earlier.
The strongest increase in recent months was seen in the plug-in hybrid car. It combines a combustion engine with an electric motor that can be charged with a plug. More than three times more of these went out on an annual basis.
The fully electric car also experienced a strong increase and was purchased more than 200,000 times. The market share of this variant has doubled to 7.5 percent in one year. The most popular electric car remains the hybrid variant without a plug. It was registered more than 500,000 times and accounted for almost 20 percent of new cars.
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