EU's Q1 hybrid electric vehicles sales double market share

23 Apr 2021

London, (Quantum Commodity Intelligence) - First-quarter sales of hybrid electric vehicles in the EU more than doubled their share on the year to 18.4% while gasoline and diesel car registrations dropped around 17%, according to data released Friday by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.

This left traditional petrol and diesel engine cars with a 65.4% share of sales, with battery electric vehicles taking 5.7% and plug-in hybrids accounting for 8.2% of EU registrations.

Gasoline sales dropped 10.1 percentage points year-on-year to 42.2% of sales, with market share falling in all major markets except for France, where the volume grew by 8.3%.

Diesel registrations lost 6.7% percentage points compared to Q1 2020 at 23.2% and saw double-digit percentage declines in all four major EU markets.

Registrations of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in the EU increased by 59.1% to reach 146,185 cars, with demand still benefiting from government stimuli for zero-emission vehicles, according to the ACEA.

This growth was spurred by big gains in key EU markets, most notably in Germany (+149.0%) and Italy (+145.6%).

By contrast, demand for battery-electric cars declined in Spain (-12.6%) from January to March.

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) remained the largest volume category of alternatively-powered passenger cars in the EU, with 469,784 units registered from January to March 2021 (an increase of 101.6% compared to the same period last year).

Registrations of hybrids rose nearly everywhere in the region, including Italy (+246.8%), France (+135.0%), Germany (+60.5%) and Spain (+39.4%).

Demand for natural gas vehicles (NGVs) in the European Union declined by 10.1% to 14,300 units during the first quarter, despite registrations increasing by 24.5% in Italy (the largest EU market for these vehicles).

Sales of LPG-fuelled cars, on the other hand, almost doubled (+92.7%) to reach 46,037 units, boosted by remarkable gains in France (+1,748.6%; now the second-largest EU market for LPG cars) and Italy (+23.9%), which accounted for more than half of total LPG sales.