Cars In December, for the first time in Europe, more diesel cars were registered than diesel cars

Fully electric cars sales in December exceeded for the first time sales of diesel cars in almost all of Europe, informs automotive analysis house Schmidt Automotive.

About 176,000 new all-electric cars were registered in December, while about 161,000 diesel cars were registered. The figure also includes hybrids with a diesel engine.

Every fifth new car registered in Europe in December was a fully electric car, and a record number of them were also registered. The previous record was a year ago from December 2020, when a total of 165,600 all-electric cars were registered.

Diesel vehicles popularity in Europe continued to decline last year, largely due to the proliferation of all-electric cars, according to Schmidt Automotive.

According to the release, sales of electric cars have been boosted by, for example, favorable legislation, new car models and various financial support. Last year, about one in nine new cars registered in Europe was a fully electric car.

All-electric cars have also been diligently registered in Finland. According to the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom, about one in ten of passenger cars registered for the first time in 2021 was a fully electric car (10.3 per cent) and diesel cars were only slightly more popular (10.8 per cent).

Downloadable hybrids, on the other hand, were the Finns’ favorite cars with alternative propulsion last year, and about one in five registered cars was a hybrid. In Traficom’s statistics, diesel cars and hybrids are reported separately.

SchmidT AUTOMOTIVE predicts that the popularity of all – electric cars will continue to grow in 2022. Growth is likely to be boosted by, for example, the opening of Tesla’s new plant in Germany and Europe’s ambitious emissions targets.

The analysis house monitors the development of the electric car fleet on a monthly basis. The above data refer to Finland, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Italy, Austria, Greece, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, France, Sweden, Germany and Denmark.