In January 2023, passenger car registration in the EU increased by 11.3% YoY, totaling 760,041 units continuing a trend of recovery from 2022. However, this growth primarily occurred due to an unusually modest base in January 2022. Further, in Croatia, passenger car registration reported solid growth of 14.1% YoY.

In January 2023, passenger car registration in the EU increased by 11.3% YoY, totaling 760,041 units. The most significant increase reported in the EU by far was in Spain, where the reported increase amounted to 21.8k units, representing a 51.4% YoY increase. Spain is followed by Italy, where a 20.6k unit increase can be noted (+19% YoY). Furthermore, France, which can be considered a major and significant region reported an increase of 9.1k units (+8.8% YoY%), while Germany, also a significant region, reported a slight decrease of 2.6% YoY in January. Finally, Croatia noted a solid 14.1% YoY increase with 3.4k total units.

Fuel types of new cars

During January 2023, petrol remained the most popular fuel type for newly-registered cars in the EU with 12.3% growth, resulting in a market share of 37.9% (+0.3 p.p.). By contrast, the EU’s diesel car market continued to struggle with a 1.6% further decline YoY. Further, registration of new battery electric vehicles increases by as much as 22.9% across the EU with a market share of 9.5% (+0.9 p.p. YoY). Hybrid electric vehicles also reported a strong start to the year with 22.1% YoY growth, across all of the big markets.

Fuel type cars market share [January 2023, %]

Source: ACEA, Bloomberg Research