In March, the European market noted a high decrease in new passenger car registrations, as the already struggling car market was additionally impacted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
According to JATO Dynamics, some 1,116,419 new passenger cars were registered in March in 27 European markets monitored by the company. That's 19% less than a year ago and 37% less than in 2019 (pre-pandemic level).
The Q1 2022 result is 2.73 million units, which is 11% lower than a year ago and actually the lowest level since 1985. It's doubtful that things will improve in the short term.
In such circumstances, plug-in electric car registrations at 244,801 in March do not look bad. According to the report, the volume increased by 10% and allowed for reaching a new record market share of 21.9%. That's more than in the case of diesel (202,113 units, down 39% year-over-year).
Similar to the data reported by EV Volumes, it seems that BEVs are growing quickly, while the plug-in hybrids noted a 22% decline.
Registration results for the month:
- BEVs: 151,701 (up 47%) and 13.6% share
- PHEVs: 93,100 (down 22%) and 8.3% share
- Total: 244,801 (up 10%) and 21.9% share
Top models
An interesting thing in March was that the volume deliveries of Tesla's cars in the final month of the quarter allowed the brand to achieve another spectacular result.
The Tesla Model 3 happened to be the most registered car in March (23,013, but down 3% year-over-year), while the Tesla Model Y was third (18,968). The Tesla brand noted 41,983 (up 76% year-over-year), which is more than Dacia, Citroen, Fiat, or Nissan.
The Tesla Model 3 was #1 overall also in September 2021 and December 2021.
Most of the other best-selling models noted a double-digit decrease in the number of registrations.
Nonetheless, we must remember that Tesla's results are uneven, and the Q1 result was 58,614 (up 89%) - 18th among brands.
Among the top BEVs we can see also the Fiat 500 electric, Kia Niro EV and Volkswagen ID.4, while the Ford Kuga PHEV is the top plug-in hybrid:
Outside of the top 10 were the Hyundai Ioniq 5 (3,243), Kia EV6 (2,941) and Polestar 2 (1,343).
