New cars in the EU: diesel -15.5%, petrol +19.8%, electric +43.8%
Petrol and diesel cars: Diesel’s market share fell from 45.2% to 36.3% of total passenger car registrations compared to the same quarter one year ago. This drop was largely offset by an increase in demand for petrol cars (+19.8%), which now account for almost 57% of all new passenger cars sold in the EU – 7 percentage points more than in Q2 2017.
Alternatively-powered vehicles (APV): In the second quarter of 2018, demand for alternatively-powered vehicles in the European Union grew significantly (+44.3%), mostly driven by hybrid (+49.2%) and battery electric (+45.5%) car sales. Overall, 72,168 electrically-chargeable cars were registered in the EU from April to June 2018, or 43.8% more than in the same period one year ago. Demand for LPG and NGV vehicles also increased strongly – up 35.2% in the second quarter of the year – mainly thanks to a notable uplift of natural gas-fuelled car registrations (+139.8%).
Among the five key EU markets, APV registrations saw the highest increases in Spain (+79.4%) and Germany (+72.1%). Demand for alternatively-powered vehicles also continued to post strong growth in France (+43.4%), the UK (+42.3%) and Italy (+20.7%).
