In April the automotive market in the EU, EFTA and Great Britain countries grew by 12% thanks to an increase in sales in the major markets. According to Acea data, 1,080,913 new cars were sold. The United Kingdom recorded an increase of 1% which compares with the +13.7% of the European Union countries and the +13.5% of the EFTA countries (-27.2%).
The growth, according to Acea, is partly due to the two more working days compared to April 2023. In the EU+EFTA+UK area, registrations of electric cars increased by 14.4% to 144,656 units. The only type of engine to decline was diesel (-0.8% to 124,943 units), when the best performance was achieved by hybrid cars (+29.1% to 318,854 units). In the first 4 months of the year, registrations in Europe amounted to 4,476,369, up 6.5% compared to the 4,201,904 units in the period January-April 2023.
Sales of the most polluting vehicles are falling
Furthermore, last April hybrid electrics rose to 29.1% from 24.9%. The share of electric cars is stable at 12%. In contrast, the combined share of petrol and diesel vehicles fell to less than half the market, to 48.9%, from 52.8%. At the same time, however, in April, sales of petrol cars increased by 7.3% to 328,967 units, thanks to double-digit increases in key markets such as Spain (+24.1%), Germany (+18, 6%) and Italy (+14.1%). However, their market share decreased from 38.1% to 36% compared to the same month last year. Meanwhile, the diesel car market remained stable at around 118,000 units, accounting for almost 13% of the market. Despite substantial declines in major markets such as Italy (-21.1%), Spain (-19.3%) and France (-18.1%), a significant increase in Germany (+28.2% ) helped offset these losses
