Admittedly, the gap is not huge, but everything leads us to believe that electric cars will soon largely dominate diesel vehicles.
He was not so long ago where diesel monopolized a very large – and sometimes even majority – share of car sales. So much so, moreover, that manufacturers like Porsche or Maserati resolved to offer them, too, in their range, to the chagrin of some fans of gasoline engines.
Thermal engines begin their swan song in Europe
Today, things have changed a lot. In Europe, internal combustion engines are experiencing a irretrievable decline. They will be purely and simply banned from sale from 2035, even if niche brands have managed to obtain an exemption for synthetic fuels. We also had the opportunity to recently test an e-fuel powered Porsche.
In the transition phase that we are currently experiencing, gasoline vehicles play an important role. For Diesel, on the other hand, the situation is already relatively critical.
The figures published by the ACEA (Association of European Automobile Manufacturers) are very telling in this respect. They reveal that sales of electric models are now higher than those of diesel vehicles. Over the period January-April 2023, the institute counted 559,733 electric car registrations (+ 37% compared to January-April 2022), against 550,391 Diesel cars (- 0.5%). That is respective market shares of 13.3 and 13.1%.
ACEA data covers Europe as a whole (European Union + EFTA countries + United Kingdom, i.e. 30 countries in total). It should also be noted that the figures mentioned for electric cars do not include sales of plug-in hybrids, nor those of conventional hybrids (respectively 299,083 and 1,089,414 units from January to April 2023).
A sustainable takeover of electric cars
If he has a strong symbolic dimension, this crossing of the curves is not in itself a surprise. In 2022, Diesel cars had certainly maintained an advantage over electric cars, but with barely more than 60,000 registrations in their favor (1,637,766 vs 1,577,079), their domination was already hanging by a thread. In France, electric cars have sold more than diesel cars since September 2022.
But rather than dwell on the slow decline of combustion in general and Diesel in particular, should we not rather focus on the performance of electric cars? After having played a marginal role for a long time, they are gaining market share month after month, and represented around 13% of sales in Europe from January to April 2023.
The development of the range of electric models and the growing interest of motorists are largely fueling this trend. However, the role of purchase aids cannot be hidden. We will have to see how the market reacts when governments decide to reform them. We will have a first glimpse of it in France shortly, with the arrival of an anti-Chinese car bonus…
The growth in electric vehicle sales is good news from an ecological point of view, because it leads to a drop in air pollution. Admittedly, an electric car is not without impact on the environment, but as certain studies have shown, the balance remains fairly largely positive compared to thermal models.
Do you use Google News (News in France)? You can follow your favorite media. Follow Frandroid on Google News (and Numerama).