Electric vehicle sales in EU increase market share in 2021 to 18%: ACEA

Electric vehicles made up 18% of overall new car registrations in the European Union in 2021, up from a 10.5% share in 2020, according to new data released Feb. 2 by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.

The total of 1.7 million units was also up 66.8% from 2020.

Sales of new battery EVs rose 63.1% on the year to 878,432 units in 2021, a 9.1% share, which compared with a 5.4% share in 2020, the data showed.

Plug-in hybrid EV sales also rose 70.7% from 2020 to 867,092 units, which was an 8.9% share, up from 5.1% the previous year.

The EU country with the largest volume of EV sales was Germany, which more than tripled BEV sales year on year to 356,425 units sold, while PHEV sales rose 62.3% to 325,449 units.

Meanwhile, hybrid EVs at 1.9 million units accounted for 19.6% of all new passenger cars registered in in 2021, up from 11.9% in 2020. The total of HEVs was up 60.5% year on year.

In mid-January, the ACEA reported that passenger vehicle registrations in the EU had fallen 2.4% in 2021 to 9.7 million units.

The overall contraction of the EU car market affected both diesel- and petrol-powered vehicles negatively, the ACEA said in a Feb. 2 statement.

However, the data showed that petrol and diesel vehicles continued to dominate new passenger vehicle sales in 2021, accounting for 59.6% of all new registrations, although this was down from 75.5% in 2020.

Sales of petrol vehicles in 2021 totaled 3.9 million units, down 17.8% year on year and making up 40% of total sales, down from a 47.5% share the previous year.

Diesel passenger vehicle sales also dropped 31.5% year on year to 1.9 million units, with the market share falling from 27.9% in 2020 to 19.6%.

— Jacqueline Holman