New car registrations: +17.2% in April, battery electric 11.8% market share

From January to April 2023, the EU car market grew by 17.8% to 3.5 million registered cars. Despite the year-on-year improvement, sales were still down by 22.8% compared to the same period in 2019, highlighting the EU car market’s ongoing struggle. Among the four major EU markets, Spain (+33.7%) saw the highest gains, followed by Italy (+26.9%), France (+16.7%), and Germany (+7.9%).

Fuel types of new cars

In April, the market share of battery electric cars experienced a significant upturn, rising from 9.1% to 11.8%. While hybrids now represent 24.8% of the EU new car market, petrol cars continue to dominate with the largest share at 38.2%.

Electric cars

Last month, EU registrations of new battery electric cars recorded a significant increase (+51.9%), reaching 94,561 units. This represents a market share of 11.8%, an increase of almost 3% compared to April 2022. Most EU markets recorded double- and triple-digit percentage gains, including the two largest: France (+34.8%) and Germany (+34.1%). This amounted to a cumulative increase of 45.1%, with 415,579 units sold in the first four months of 2023.

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) continued to grow in April, with sales up by 22.7% to 199,407 units. This growth was primarily due to double-digit increases in the EU’s four key markets: Germany (+35.9%), France (+28.6%), Italy (+28.3%), and Spain (+14.4%). As a result, HEVs now occupy a market share of 24.8% (up from 23.7% in April 2022).

Despite a 4.3% growth in March, the EU market for plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) declined in April (-5.5%), with sales dropping significantly in Germany (-45.7%), the largest market for this fuel type. Consequently, the overall PHEV market share declined from 9.2% in April last year to 7.4% in 2023.

Petrol and diesel cars

New petrol car registrations in the EU had another strong month in April, with sales increasing by 17.3%, reaching 306,757 units. This amounts to a market share of 38.2%, the same share as in April 2022. Growth was mainly driven by solid results in the four key EU markets, particularly Italy (+39.3%) and France (+31.3%). Since the beginning of the year, EU petrol sales have reached nearly 1.3 million units, a remarkable 18.3% increase from the same period in 2022.

The EU diesel car market remained stable in April (+0.03%), despite positive performance in two of the bloc’s largest markets: Italy (+21.5%) and Germany (+2.4%). Diesel cars represent 14.7% of the EU market share, down from 17.2% in April 2022.

From January to April 2023, the EU car market grew by 17.8% to 3.5 million registered cars. Despite the year-on-year improvement, sales were still down by 22.8% compared to the same period in 2019, highlighting the EU car market’s ongoing struggle.