According to reports, data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) on November 3 showed that in the third quarter of this year, electric and hybrid vehicles accounted for 43% of the total new car sales in the EU.
Sales of BEVs, plug-in hybrids and hybrids accounted for less than 40 percent of total EU sales in the same period last year, ACEA said. The European Union has already announced that it will ban the sale of new fossil-fuel vehicles from 2035, so all cars eventually sold in the market must be zero-emission models.
Data show that more than one-tenth (11.9%) of the cars sold in the EU in the third quarter of this year were pure electric zero-emission models. Sales of pure electric vehicles increased by 22% year-on-year.
EU national and local governments have been scaling back subsidies for plug-in hybrid vehicles in favor of pure electric vehicles. Sales of plug-in hybrids in the EU fell 6 percent in the third quarter.
Sales of petrol cars in the EU fell 3.3% year-on-year in the third quarter, but petrol cars remained the most popular car in the bloc, accounting for 37.8% of total sales. Sales of diesel vehicles fell by 4.7% year-on-year, with a market share of 16.5%. Diesel cars accounted for nearly 52 percent of EU car sales in 2015, but sales of such models have been in decline since Volkswagen's "Dieselgate" scandal.
