Whereas new automobile registrations remained sturdy in Spain, different main European markets, together with France and Germany, noticed marked declines.
EU new automobile registrations edged up barely by 0.8% in 2024 to roughly 10.6 million items. This was primarily pushed by strong registration numbers in Spain, which jumped 7.1%.
Nonetheless, different key European markets struggled final yr, with new automobile registrations in Germany dropping 1%, whereas France noticed a lower of three.2%. Italian new automobile registration numbers additionally fell 0.5%.
This was primarily due to ongoing provide chain disruptions in France, in addition to altering client preferences. In Germany, persevering with semiconductor shortages contributed to a fall in registration numbers.
New EU automobile registrations in December elevated by 5.1%, in distinction with the 1.9% drop seen within the earlier month. Spanish new automobile registrations soared 28.8% in December, whereas France additionally skilled a lift of 1.5%.
Alternatively, new automobile registrations in Germany continued to be sluggish, falling 7.1%, together with Italy, the place registration numbers dropped 4.9%.
Battery-electric car (BEV) registrations made up 13.6% of latest automobile registrations in 2024, with hybrid electrical automobiles (HEV) accounting for 30.9% of all registrations.
Sigrid de Vries, the director basic of ACEA, mentioned in an e-mail word: “At a time after we want scale greater than ever to assist the economic and market transition to inexperienced mobility, these numbers stay a trigger for concern.
“It’s anticipated that the general market share of electrical vehicles will proceed to stagnate in 2025, bringing the danger of excessive penalties for non-compliance for EU producers. We rely on the Strategic Dialogue with the European Fee subsequent week to seek out an pressing answer to the disproportionate compliance burden attributable to the sluggish demand.”
Petrol automobiles remained the preferred selection in 2024
EU registrations of latest petrol vehicles accounted for 33.3% of complete registrations for the complete yr 2024, whereas new diesel automobile registrations accounted for 11.9%.
Nonetheless, in December, petrol automobile registrations fell by 1.8%, throughout the bloc with Spain being the one key EU market to point out resilience, with a progress of 16%.
France confronted the most important decline, with new petrol automobile registrations plunging by 23%, together with Italy, the place registrations dropped 11.4%. Germany additionally noticed a fall of seven.4%.
A complete of 269,260 new petrol vehicles had been registered in December, bringing the petrol automobile market share right down to 29.6% for the month, in distinction with 31.6% in December 2023.
Equally, the diesel automobile market share got here as much as 9.8% in December, which was a drop of 15% in contrast with the identical month the earlier yr.
Battery-electric car (BEV) registrations fall in December
Battery electrical automobile registrations dropped by 10.2% in December, accounting for 144,367 items, with a market share of 15.9%. This was primarily due to giant declines in German registrations, which plunged 38.6%, in addition to French registrations, which dropped 20.7%.
Alternatively, plug-in hybrid automobile registrations elevated 4.9% in December, boosted by French registrations which jumped 44.9%, in addition to German registrations, which grew 6.8%.
One of many predominant causes for dampened battery electrical automobile registrations in December is the EU imposing elevated tariffs on imports from Chinese language electrical car corporations, similar to Geely, SAIC and BYD.
This has been carried out following elevated considerations concerning the Chinese language authorities subsidising the Chinese language corporations due to this fact permitting them to promote their merchandise at far decrease costs than European producers.
Nonetheless, the present tariffs don’t cowl hybrid automobiles, which has led a number of of these corporations to focus extra on their hybrid choices, in an try and regain their European market share.
Europeans are additionally holding again from shopping for new vehicles as considerations about the price of residing proceed to have an effect.