The number of new battery electric vehicle (BEV) registrations increased in 2022 despite a general downturn in the EU car market. As a consequence, the market share of BEVs increased to 12.1%, an increase of 3.0 percentage points over 2021. Hybrid vehicles also had a successful year, with a market share of 22.6%. Traditional fuels like gasoline and diesel, meanwhile, kept losing momentum. Yet, they still made up more than half of all automobile sales in the EU in 2022.
New battery electric car registrations in the EU increased from October to December by 31.6% to 406,890 units, with increases seen in the majority of the region’s markets. France climbed by 12.6% to 62,155 units, trailing Germany, which increased by 66.1% to 198,293 units. Following a sluggish third quarter, sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles in the EU increased significantly (+29.5%) in the fourth quarter of 2022. This gain was boosted by a 73.5% increase in Germany, which accounted for more than half of the region’s registrations in this category. This enabled the overall result to rise by 1.2% and enter the positive range.
Sales of petrol-powered vehicles increased by 4.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022. This progress was facilitated by all four major markets, particularly Italy (+17.4%) and France (+3.5%). Despite this, petrol’s market share fell from 35.5% in the same time in 2021 to 32.5% in 2018.
Diesel, on the other hand, had a minor fall (-0.4%) in the final three months of the year, and its market share decreased to 14.4% from 16.4% in the fourth quarter of 2021. As a consequence, 1.5 million diesel cars were registered for the entire year, a 19.7% decline, giving the market share of 16.4%—3.1 percentage points lower than in 2021.
In the final three months of 2022, the EU market for natural gas vehicles (NGVs) saw significant reductions (-56.6%), with sales in Italy, the region’s largest market for this fuel type, falling by 71.3%. LPG-fueled cars, on the other hand, had a 16.7% increase from October through December of the previous year.
Over 1.3 million alternatively powered vehicles (APVs) were registered in the EU during the last quarter of the year, making up more over half (53.1%) of the market. This is the first time traditional gasoline and diesel fuel types have been surpassed on a quarterly basis by APVs.
Source: ACEA
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