Significant growth in electric cars
Sales of new cars in the European Union increased further in April compared to last year. Despite a strong plus, sales are still lagging behind 2019.
Last month, 803,188 new cars were sold in the European Union, industry organization ACEA reports. It was 17.2 percent more than last year in that month. The sales growth over the first four months of this year is even greater: 17.8 percent. Nevertheless, the ACEA emphasizes that sales are not yet at the ‘old’ level. Compared to 2019, sales are still 22.8 percent lower. 2019 was the last year before corona and subsequently the global chip shortage disrupted new car sales.
Electric growth spurt
Nevertheless, there are still impressive growth rates, especially in the sale of fully electric cars. In the past month, 94,561 fully electric cars were sold in the EU, 51.9 percent more than in that month last year. With that number, electric cars accounted for 11.8 percent of total sales, almost 3 percent more market share than last year.
New petrol cars are still the most popular in the EU: 38.2 percent of new cars sold in April were petrol cars, the same share as last year. Hybrid cars followed in second place, with 24.8 percent of sales, one percent more market share than last year. Diesel follows in third place with 14.7 percent, that market share has shrunk by 2.5 percent. Plug-in hybrids accounted for 7.4 percent of sales, which is also slightly less than last year, when it was still 9.2 percent of the market.
Volkswagen was the most popular brand in the EU in April with a share of 11.8 percent, followed by Renault with 6.3 percent and Toyota with 5.8 percent.
Strong growth in Spain
Of the largest car markets in the EU, Spain experienced the highest growth in April. No fewer than 33.7 percent more new cars were sold there than last year. Italy also increased strongly with 26.9 percent. In France, growth was slightly below average at 16.7 percent and in Germany, growth of 7.9 percent was relatively disappointing. In April, the Netherlands surpassed all these countries in terms of growth percentage: no less than 35 percent more new cars were sold here, as it turned out at the beginning of this month.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl