Impacted by a crash in sales of electric cars, new car sales in Europe have collapsed. The Association of European Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA) announced on Thursday that a total of 18.3 percent fewer vehicles were newly registered in August than in the same period last year. Demand for electric cars has fallen by almost 44 percent. As a result, their market share is only 14.4 percent. A year ago it was still at 21 percent.
This development was particularly drastic Germany out of. There, new electric car registrations fell by almost 70 percent. In France, the second largest European market, the decline was around 33 percent. Overall, the decline in sales in these two countries was above average at 27.8 and 24.3 percent.
In the first eight months of 2024, however, European car sales rose by 1.4 percent to 7.2 million units, the ACEA said. The fastest growing markets were: Spain (4.5 percent) and Italy (3.8 percent), while Germany and France each recorded declines of around half a percent.