European car market contracts in March, EVs share slips

THE EUROPEAN car market experienced its first decline of the year in March, with the share of electric cars falling below last year’s levels, according to official data released yesterday.

Some 1.03 million new passenger cars were registered last month in the European Union, down 5.2% from a year earlier, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) said in its monthly report, citing the impact of early Easter holidays and a market downturn.

According to the ACEA, car registrations fell in March by 6.2% yearly in Germany, 4.7% in Spain, 3.7% in Italy and 1.5% in France, reflecting contraction in the four largest markets.

For the first three months of the year, registrations are up 4.4% from the year-ago period.

The strongest quarterly growth was in France and Italy, which saw registrations rise by 5.7%, while they were up by 4.2% in Germany and 3.1% in Spain.

Even though Europe plans to ban the sale of new internal combustion engine cars by 2035, sales of electric cars have stalled in the past few months. EV sales growth has slowed, and investment in capacity and technology development has outrun demand as many prospective buyers are deterred by cost and continuing doubts about infrastructure.

Only 13% of new registrations in March were electric, up slightly from 12% in February but down from 14.6% for all of last year.

In Germany alone, registrations of electric cars fell by 28.9%. On the other hand, hybrid cars accounted for 29% of the market in March, up from 24.4% in March a year ago.

The Volkswagen group, which also includes Audi and Skoda, remained the largest seller of cars in Europe, though its share of the market shrank 0.8 points to 24.9%.

Stellantis (Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat) also lost 0.4 points to 18.9%.

Among gainers, hybrid-specialist Toyota saw its share jump 1.1 points to 8.1%.

The number of new vehicles registered in March in the EU, Britain and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) fell by 2.8% to 1,383,410 vehicles, despite a 10.4% increase in Britain, the ACEA data showed.