EU new diesel passenger vehicles below 20pc of market

Registrations of new diesel-fuelled passenger vehicles in the EU fell to 19.6pc of the market in 2021. Gasoline fell to a 40pc market share, but fossil-fuelled vehicles still dominate even with rapid growth in alternatives.

Battery electric vehicles had a market share of 9.1pc, and hybrid vehicles 19.6pc, according to manufacturers' body Acea.

Large percentage drops in new diesel sales were recorded in major markets Spain (-27.4pc), Poland (-28.1pc), Italy (-28.6pc), Germany (-36pc) and France (-30.7pc). The steepest falls were in Cyprus (-46.4pc), Denmark (-46.5pc) and the Netherlands (-46.6pc). Acea recorded the largest fall in new diesel passenger vehicle registrations, of -48.1pc, in non-EU UK.

New plug-in hybrid electric vehicles registrations increased by 70.7pc in 2021 to 867,092, and battery electric vehicles recorded growth of 63.1pc to 878,432. LPG-fuelled cars increased by 5.7pc to 59,959, and new natural gas vehicles (NGV) fell significantly in the last three months of 2021 (-45.9pc), due to falling sales in Italy (-40.6pc).

With an average age of EU cars at 11.8 years, changes in fuel types will take time to work through into vehicles in use. Last month, Acea said there were 246.3mn cars in the EU in 2020, up by 1.2pc from 2019. Of these, gasoline (51.7pc) and diesel (42.8pc) dominate, far ahead of LPG vehicles (2.5pc), BEV (0.5pc), plugin hybrid (0.6pc) and hybrid electric (0.5pc).

The highest growth in the total number of passenger cars on the road in 2020, compared with 2019, was seen in Romania (+5.4pc) and Slovakia (+5.1pc). France was alone in the EU with its passenger car fleet shrinking slightly by -0.3pc. Acea records great differences in car ages, with those in Luxembourg averaging less than seven years while those in Lithuania and Romania average almost 17 years. The average age of cars is over 16 years in Estonia, Greece, Lithuania and Romania. Major markets have slightly newer cars, notably in France (10.3), Germany (9.8), Italy (11.8), Spain (13.1) and Poland (14.3).

By Dafydd ab Iago