EU: Green Cars Accounted for 48% of Registrations in 2023
Finland is the leading country: 78% of new cars are electric or hybrid vehicles
EU statistical service Eurostat has published car registration data for 2023.
10.7 million new vehicles were put on the road, with gasoline-powered vehicles still accounting for the largest share (34.5%), followed by gasoline-electric plug-in hybrid vehicles (21.1%), battery-only electric vehicles (14.5%), and diesel vehicles (14.3%).
Despite recent data showing a crisis in the electric vehicle market that has forced some manufacturers (see Stellantis) to reprogram models originally produced as exclusively electric by adding a hybrid version to the lineup, the growth in registrations of battery electric vehicles between 2013 and 2023 has been very rapid. Today, the combined share of all hybrid and battery electric vehicles matches that of gasoline and diesel vehicles (48.3% vs. 48.8%).
The most “virtuous” country, that is, the one that registered more cars defined as “green,” i.e. hybrid and electric, is Finland. In nine EU countries, the share of hybrid and electric vehicles in new registrations exceeded 50% in 2023. The highest share is in Finland (78%), where 44% of hybrid cars and 34% of electric cars were registered, in Sweden (69%), with 30% of hybrid cars and 39% of electric cars, and in the Netherlands (68%), with 37% of hybrid cars and 31% of electric cars.
