The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) revealed this Tuesday that new passenger car sales recorded a slight increase of 0.8% in 2024, reaching around 10.6 million units.
According to ACEA data, the growth of the European market was affected by declines observed in the three largest markets of the European bloc: Germany, France, and Italy, despite Spain’s resilience with a solid growth rate of 7.1%.
In contrast to Spain’s growth, Germany saw sales decrease by 1%, while France fell by 3.2% and Italy declined by 0.5%.
Data for the last month of 2024 revealed that new car registrations in the European Union increased by 5.1%. Spain led the way with a robust double-digit increase of 28.8%, followed by France with a modest rise of 1.5%. However, Germany dropped by 7.1% and Italy fell by 4.9%.
Sales of 100% electric cars fell by 10.2% to 144,367 units in December 2024. This decline was primarily driven by a significant reduction in registrations in Germany (-38.6%) and France (-20.7%), leading to a 5.9% decrease in the market volume of 100% electric vehicles in 2024 compared to 2023. As a result, the total market share for battery electric cars stood at 13.6% in 2024.
On the other hand, registrations of plug-in hybrid cars increased by 4.9% in the final month of 2024, driven by significant increases in France (44.9%) and Germany (6.8%).
In December, plug-in hybrids represented 8.3%, maintaining the level of the previous year. However, total volumes for 2024 fell by 6.8% compared to 2023.
On the other hand, registrations of hybrid vehicles increased by 33.1% in December, with market share growing to 33.6%, compared to 26.5% recorded in December 2023, thus surpassing gasoline vehicle registrations for the fourth consecutive month.
New gasoline cars saw a decline of 1.8% in the last month of 2024, with all major markets under pressure, except for Spain, which recorded an increase of 16%. Meanwhile, the French market experienced the largest drop at 23%, followed by Italy with a decline of 11.4%. Germany also recorded a decrease of 7.4%.
With 269,260 new cars registered in December 2024, the market share for gasoline fell to 29.6%, down from 31.6% observed in the same month of 2023.
Conversely, the diesel vehicle market fell by 15% in December, resulting in a market share of 9.8%. Overall, double-digit declines were recorded in most EU markets.
