February registrations of new passenger cars in the EU increased by 11.5% to 802,763 units, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). Most EU markets showed strong growth, including the top four, with Spain and Italy showing the best performance (+19.2% and +17.4% respectively).
According to ACEA, last month The most developed segment was electric vehicles (BEV), registrations of which increased by 39.7% to 97,300 cars. So their share in the new passenger car market increased to 12.1%, up from 9.7% in February 2022.
Excluding the Czech Republic (-3.2%) and Slovakia (-28.2 %), all markets in the region contributed to this growth with double and triple digit percentage gains, including the top three: Germany (+14.7%), France (+45.7%) and the Netherlands (+88.9%).
February was also a good month for hybrids (HEV), with sales up 22.3% to 204,883 units. This growth was largely driven by mixed growth in four of the region's key markets: Spain (+31.8%), France (+24.6%), Germany (+24.2%) and Italy (+23.9%) . As a result, HEV market share reached 25.5% compared to 23.3% in February 2022.
In contrast, plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) registrations decreased by 7.4% up to 57,569 cars sold. This drop was mainly due to a significant decline in sales in Germany (-44.8%), where PHEV subsidies were discontinued in 2022.
Registrations for new petrol vehicles increased by 11.1%, and their market share was 36.9%, which is in line with the share recorded last year. Spain (+19.0%), Italy (+16.3%), Germany (+8.9%) and France (+7.7%) contributed to this growth. At the same time, the EU diesel car market continued to fall (-8.4%), despite growth in some Central European markets such as Poland (+18.9%) and the Czech Republic (+12.4%), and also in Italy (+2.2%).
In just the first two months of the year, the EU market reached almost 1.6 million new registered vehicles, an increase of 11.4% compared to the same period in 2022. Looking at the four main EU markets, Spain (+32.1%) and Italy (+18.2%) recorded the largest gains, followed by France (+9.1%). The number of registered cars in Germany remained almost unchanged (+0.2%) over this two-month period.
