Fossil fuel car sales collapse in Europe

[Excludes pure hybrids]

In France:

France, the world’s 8th largest auto market, just hit 11% electric vehicle market share in January, a year-on-year growth of 4×. Meanwhile, diesel and gasoline vehicle sales crashed by ~25% year on year.

The massive year-on-year market share jump from January 2019’s 2.7% to 11% was boosted by manufacturers releasing EV stock that had deliberately been held back in late 2019. Manufacturers need to push hard for EV sales now that we’re into 2020, in order to meet the new European CO2 emissions targets that start this year.

Whilst the 11% figure thus partly represents a spring-back effect from recent suppression, it’s also likely that France’s full year 2020 EV  market share [excluding pure hybrids] will achieve at least 5% overall (from 2019’s full year figure of 2.8%). Whether 10% or higher can be sustained over the coming months, we will have to wait to see.

[Read more here]


In Germany:

Europe’s largest auto market, Germany, saw January fossil fuel vehicle sales drop by over 15% year-on-year, with gasoline vehicles alone down over 17%. Meanwhile, EVs increased their market share to 6.5% from 2.5%. Europe’s big five markets are now at a combined 6.0% EV market share. What progress will full year 2020 bring overall?

Parsing out the electric vehicle mix, pure battery electrics took 3% market share, with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) taking 3.5%. Regular hybrids and mild-hybrids also saw good growth, to 9% market share, but we do not include them under the “electric vehicle” umbrella. [I.e, the percentage of cars with an electric engine is now 15.5%]

As I’ve recently discussed elsewhere, non-plug-in hybrids can certainly boost the efficiency of old-school combustion engines, which is sorely needed, as Germany’s average CO2/km still came in at 151.5 grams, almost 60% above the European fleet target for 2020. However, non-plug-in hybrids are not able to meet the more ambitious emissions targets that will phase in over the current decade. This will require plug-in vehicles with a range of ~50 km (~30 miles) or more.

[Read more here]

Europe and China have ambitious targets for EVs.  This is surely the beginning of the end for oil.  More than half global oil demand is for transport.  As cars with an electric motor gain market share over the next decade, oil demand is likely to plunge.