Diesel and petrol: decline in car sales in the EU
The increasingly stringent regulations in the field of motorists, combined with the boom in fuel prices, are changing the buying habits of Europeans. Here are some data from Statista
In the first nine months of 2021, according to data from the European Association of Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA), registrations of petrol and diesel cars fell by 9 and 8.5 percent respectively compared to the previous year. Hybrid electric-powered vehicles, on the other hand, saw an 8.8 percent increase in registrations, putting their market share of cars registered between January and September 2021 about one percent behind diesel units. Overall, the share of cars with alternative powertrains continues to grow steadily, making up more than a third of newly registered cars in the EU in the first three quarters of this year.
Switching to electric cars with rechargeable batteries is also not without its downsides. Although a study conducted by the Universities of Exeter, Cambridge and Nijmegen has shown that the average total carbon emissions of an electric vehicle are still much lower than those of a fossil fuel-powered vehicle, even taking into account production emissions, it remains the problem of the supply of minerals for batteries, their longevity and the increase in the production of electronic waste.
Even though the automotive industry in the European Union continues to boast of achieving its targets for reducing average CO2 emissions according to ICCT data, these numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt: no transitional arrangements and extra credits for Low-emission vehicles and eco-innovation technologies, most of the big manufacturers like Ford-Volvo, BMW and Volkswagen would miss the target by a considerable margin. Of the estimated 7 gigatonnes of CO2 emitted by the transport sector in 2020, passenger cars contributed 2.9 gigatonnes or 40%.
Thanks to our Telegram channel you can stay updated on the publication of new articles of Economic Scenarios.
The article Diesel and petrol: drop in car sales in the EU comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/diesel-e-benzina-calo-vendute-auto-nella-ue/ on Fri, 29 Oct 2021 09:36:14 +0000.