Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on August 29, 2024
2 min readLast updated: January 29, 2026
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By Alessandro Parodi and Greta Rosen Fondahn
(Reuters) -New car sales in the European Union rose 0.2% in July, slowed by declines in France and Germany, while battery-electric vehicles continued to lose market share, data from Europe’s auto industry body showed on Thursday.
Improvements in the Belgian, Dutch and French electric-vehicle (EV) markets failed to offset a drop of almost 37% in Germany’s battery-electric sales, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) said.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Car sales have shown mixed trends across the bloc, in part due to diverging policies on green incentives, while regulators have imposed hefty tariffs to try to keep out cheap Chinese EVs.
BY THE NUMBERS
Electrified vehicles – whether fully electric models, plug-in hybrids or full hybrids – sold in the EU accounted for 50.9% of all new passenger car registrations in July, up from 47% a year earlier.
But sales of battery electric and plug-in cars fell by 10.8% and 14.1% respectively, while those of hybrid-electric cars jumped 25.7%.
The market share of hybrid electric cars totalled 32% in July, a jump from 25.5% a year ago.
Car registrations at Europe’s three largest carmakers Volkswagen, Stellantis and Renault fell in July from a year earlier by 2.2%, 5.2% and 1.7%, respectively, amid growing competition from China.
Sales of EV-maker Tesla dropped by 14.7%, while those for China’s SAIC Motor were up 24.2%.
GRAPHICS
CONTEXT
The European Commission cut on Aug. 20 its proposed tariff on imports of Tesla cars built in China to 9%, while broadly maintaining plans for tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles of up to 36.3%.
Stellantis, which saw the biggest drop in sales among EU carmakers, had reported a bigger than expected fall in revenue and operating profit for the first half, also due to internal operational issues.
Sales of hybrid electric cars, seen as a compromise between all-combustion and all-electric, and as a more affordable and convenient alternative to EVs which require charging infrastructure, have increased in the EU in recent months.
Germany, the bloc’s largest EV market, in December brought an early end to subsidies for buying EVs as part of a last-minute 2024 budget deal.
(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi and Greta Rosen Fondahn; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Christopher Cushing)
A battery-electric vehicle (BEV) is a type of electric vehicle that is powered entirely by electricity stored in batteries and does not use any gasoline or diesel fuel.
Hybrid-electric cars combine a conventional internal combustion engine with an electric propulsion system, allowing for improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions compared to traditional vehicles.
Market share refers to the percentage of an industry's sales that a particular company or product controls, indicating its competitiveness in the market.
The European Commission is the executive branch of the European Union responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, and managing the day-to-day operations of the EU.
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