HYBRID CARS OUTSELL DIESEL IN EUROPE FOR THE FIRST TIME -ACEA

Wed 02 February 2022:

According to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, one out of every eleven automobiles sold in Europe was a battery-electric vehicle, totaling just under 880,000.

In Europe, self-charging hybrid automobiles, which use both an internal combustion engine and a battery, outsold diesel cars for the first time in 2021, though only by 48 vehicles.

Self-charging hybrid automobiles have a battery that is charged by an internal combustion engine and can only travel a certain distance on electricity.

Plug-in hybrids are powered mostly by an external battery charger, making them more ecologically friendly, but they also have an internal combustion engine, whereas battery-electric automobiles are powered only by the battery.

A total of 1,901,239 million self-charging hybrid cars were registered in the European Union throughout the year, a significant jump from the 1.1 million registered in 2020.

Diesel registrations, which have cratered since the Dieselgate scandal in 2015, fell by a third from last year’s 2.77 million to 1,901,191.

New government subsidies for low- or zero-emission vehicles that took effect as part of pandemic recovery programmes trebled sales of plug-in hybrid and battery-electric vehicle sales in 2020 to over one million, with a roughly even split between the two types.

The plug-in hybrids are seen by carmakers as a technology of transition to fully-electric cars, but their green credentials have been criticised by environmental groups as studies have shown drivers rely more than hoped on the internal combustion engine over the battery, pushing up the vehicles’ emissions.

Per the data, battery-electric vehicle sales increased by 63.1 percent to almost 878,500 cars in 2021, while plug-in hybrid vehicle sales increased by 70.7 percent to over 867,100 cars.

Petrol was still the most popular fuel type, but by a smaller margin than last year, accounting for 40% of new registrations, down from 48% in 2020.

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