Here’s proof that diesel cars are now a thing of the past in Europe

Who says end of year says sales report. ACEA, the association of European automobile manufacturers, has put online its figures for the first eleven months of the year for the European Union: surprise, the share of sales of electric cars has exceeded that of diesel models! If the simple hybrid is growing strongly, the plug-in hybrid (PHEV) is declining.

It’s crazy how quickly things can change. While diesel represented more than 50% of European sales in 2016, its market share plummeted to 12.2% in November 2023. Worse still, this engine should be overtaken by electric cars across the whole year 2023!

Figures that do not come from just anywhere: this is theACEA, the association of European automobile manufacturers, which has just updated its sales figures for European Union countries. A study which highlights other information: if petrol cars continue to absorb almost a third of registrations and simple hybrids are still growing, plug-in hybrids seem to be stalling.

16 months of continuous progress

With more than 885,000 sales in November 2023, the European Union continues its good progress: this is the sixteenth consecutive month of increase, with an increase of 6.7% compared to November 2022. An increase which even amounts to 15.7% since the start of the year, with nearly 10 million vehicles produced.

In detail, ACEA indicates a significant increase in simple hybrid cars in this market, going from 22.7% to 27.4% from one year to the next (+ 4.7%). Electrics are more timid, increasing from 15% to 16.3%. Petrol cars retain their first places, representing 32.7% of sales last month (a slight drop of 1.8% compared to November 2022).

In terms of decline, diesel goes from 14.5% to 12.2%, while the share of plug-in hybrids in sales drops from 11.1% to 8.1%.

The reasons ? For PHEVs, sales in Germany collapsed by 60% in one year, even though it is the main market for these models in Europe. A market which also shuns electric cars, with a 22.5% drop in sales between November 2022 and November 2023 – a situation which is not expected to improve with the disappearance of the ecological bonus across the Rhine.

A paradigm shift

Fortunately, the rest of the European market responded (+ 150% for Belgium!) and 1.4 million electric cars were sold over the first eleven months of 2023, a spectacular increase of 48.2% compared to to last year. We obviously thank the Tesla Model Y, a real sales locomotive, but also the good performance of the Stellantis group’s electric range.

And it’s a small revolution that’s brewing, since electric cars represent 14.4% of European sales since the start of 2023, while diesel has to make do with 13.7%! A trend which even seems to be increasing in recent months, as we have just seen. A reality in France for more than a year, and in Europe since June 2023 in monthly sales.

It is therefore almost certain: 2023 will be the year when more electric cars will be sold than diesel in the EU but also in France.