New EU car registrations in the first seven months of the year fell 0.7% year over year to 6.54 million units, but rose 7.4% to 914,680 units in July, according to the data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).
From January to July, battery-electric cars captured 15.6% of the EU market share with around 1 million mt units — up by 24.2% year on year but “still far from where it needs to be at this point in the transition,” ACEA said.
Hybrid-electric models continued to grow, retaining their place as the most popular power type among buyers, attaining a 34.7% share of the market in the seven-month period. Meanwhile, the combined market share of petrol and diesel cars fell to 37.7%, down from 47.9% over the same period in 2024.
Hybrid electric car registrations rose 16.7% year over year to 2.26 million mt units from January to July and 14.3% to 313,221 units in July. This compared with a 20% fall for petrol cars to 1.83 million mt units in the seven-month period and a 12% drop to 248,592 units last month.
The EU is working this week to remove duties on US cars shipped into Europe, currently at 10%, and other levies on US industrial goods, as agreed in the trade deal signed by the US and European Commission in order to reduce US duty on EU exports from 27.5% to 15%.
Steelmakers, the main commodity producers associated with automaking, have been hit by US tariffs of 50%. Eurofer, the European steel federation, has said that even a 15% tariff on cars will mean an additional burden for EU steel companies.
In 2024, when the tariff on cars was only 2.5%, around 760,000 EU vehicles were exported to the US, which could be estimated at around 1 million mt of EU steel, a significant part of which may disappear as a result of the new 15% tariff on vehicles, Eurofer said.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed domestic hot-rolled steel coil in Northern Europe at Eur575/mt ($672/mt) ex-works Ruhr Aug. 27, stable day over day. Prices fell from Eur565/mt ex-works on July 1 to Eur535/mt July 21, and then started to rise, closing at Eur560/mt at the end of last month.
