Passenger cars in the EU

Data extracted in April 2017. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database. Planned article update: April 2018

This article describes developments in passenger car stocks and new registrations in the European Union (EU), focusing in particular on passenger cars powered by so-called ‘alternative fuels’.

Despite an increase over the last years, passenger cars powered by alternative fuels, including hybrid cars, only made up a small share of the fleet of passenger cars in the EU in 2015. This is reflected by the share of cars powered by alternative fuels being low among the newly registered passenger cars.

Overall, the passenger car fleet in almost all of the EU Member States has grown over the last five years. The highest number of cars per inhabitant was recorded in Luxembourg, followed by Malta, Italy and Finland. In 2015, Poland had by far the highest share of passenger cars older than 20 years, followed by Estonia and Latvia.

Preferences with regards to petrol or diesel powered passenger cars vary across the EU Member States; amongst the Member States for which recent data are available, cars with petrol powered engines make up the majority of registered passenger cars in most of the countries; diesel powered passenger cars dominate in only eight Member States. When looking at petrol and diesel engines together, the medium sized engines dominated the passenger car fleet in most EU Member States; however, in Malta, Hungary, Portugal and Romania the smallest engines dominated.

Figure 1: New passenger cars with alternative fuel engine, 2013-2015 (% of new passenger cars) - Source: Eurostat (road_eqr_carmot) and Eurostat (road_eqr_carpda)

Table 1: New passenger cars by type of engine fuel, 2015 - Source: Eurostat (road_eqr_carmot)and Eurostat (road_eqr_carpda)

Table 2: Passenger cars (number) - Source: Eurostat (road_eqs_carmot)

Figure 2: Number of passenger cars per 1000 inhabitants, 2015 - Source: Eurostat (road_eqs_carhab)

Table 3: Petrol-driven passenger cars by size of engine, 2015 (% of all passenger cars) - Source: Eurostat (road_eqs_carmot)

Table 4: Diesel-driven passenger cars by size of engine, 2015 (1000 cars; share of total registered passenger cars) - Source: Eurostat (road_eqs_carmot)

Figure 3: Passenger cars by type of engine fuel, 2015 (% of all passenger cars) - Source: Eurostat (road_eqs_carpda)

Figure 4: Passenger cars by age, 2015 (% of all passenger cars) - Source: Eurostat (road_eqs_carage)

Main statistical findings

Buyers prefer new petrol cars rather than diesel cars in most Member States, while alternative fuels continue to play a minor role

The preferences for whether a new passenger car should be powered by a petrol or diesel engine vary across EU Member States. In around two thirds of the Member States for which detailed data are available, registrations of new passenger cars powered by diesel engines outnumbered new petrol powered cars.

One reason for the differences between Member States on whether customers prefer to buy petrol, diesel or alternatively powered cars is national taxation systems, both with respect to the engine’s fuel type and to direct taxation on the different fuels. In several countries, there are also special incentive schemes to stimulate consumers to choose low-emission cars.

In 2015, the highest shares of diesel cars among the new passenger cars were recorded in Croatia (77%), Lithuania (74%) and Ireland with 71% of the total new registrations. High shares of diesel powered cars were also noted amongst the new registrations in Belgium (60%), Austria (59%) and France (58%). In contrast, petrol powered passenger cars dominated the new registrations in particular in the Netherlands (74%: 2013 data), Cyprus (69%), Malta (68%), Estonia (67%) and Finland (64%).

In the EU Member States and EFTA countries for which recent data are available, an increase in the share of new registrations of passenger cars powered by alternative fuels (including hybrids) can generally be observed in the period from 2013 to 2015, although at a low level in most countries. In 2015, the highest share by far of alternative fuels in new registrations could be seen in Italy (14.1%: 2013 data) and Poland (8.1%) and, from the EFTA countries, in Norway (12.6%). Far behind followed Sweden (2.6%), Liechtenstein (2.0%) and Turkey, Germany and Hungary with a share of 1.8% passenger cars with alternative fuels amongst the new registrations. However, for the large majority of Member States, registrations of new passenger cars with alternative fuels made up around 3% of the total registrations in 2015.

The share of registration of new passenger cars powered by alternative fuel fluctuates in several countries; indeed, as can be seen from Figure 1, the share of cars with alternative fuels in the total new registrations increased from 2013 to 2015 in several countries. One of the reasons behind this is the variety of government incentives to stimulate the share of cars with lower emissions, and the timing of when these incentives are introduced. These incentives include e.g. tax reductions, subsidies or specific privileges such as access to lanes reserved for public transport, free parking, etc. Another main influence is the number and variety of passenger car models with alternative fuel engines offered, as well as the prices of such models.

Luxembourg has the highest number of passenger cars per inhabitant

In 2015, the highest number of registered passenger cars was observed in Germany with 45 million cars. Thereafter followed Italy (37 million passenger cars: 2014 data) and France (32 million cars). Over the five year period from 2011 to 2015, there was strong growth in the number of registered passenger cars in several Member States. The highest growth over this period was recorded in Romania (19%), followed by Estonia (18%), Slovakia (16%), Poland (14%) and Czech Republic (12%).

Only three Member States recorded a decline in the number of registered passenger cars over the period observed: Greece experienced a fall of 2% and Croatia 1% from 2011 to 2015, while in Lithuania, the number of registered passenger cars slumped by 27% over this period. The latter is mainly due to a change in register procedures in 2014, where cars that do not have compulsory technical inspection or where vehicle owner's compulsory civil liability insurance had expired by 1 July 2014 were removed from the register. Consequently, Lithuanian data from 2014 onwards cannot be directly compared to data for earlier years.

Amongst the EU Member States with the highest ’motorisation rates’, i.e. passenger cars per 1000 inhabitants, there are several smaller countries. Luxembourg (661 passenger cars per 1000 inhabitants) heads the list; however, this figure may be influenced by cross-border workers (i.e. not inhabitants) using company cars registered in the country. In second place follows Malta with 634 cars per 1000 inhabitants. Other countries with a high motorisation rate include Italy (610 cars: 2014 data), Finland (590 cars) and Cyprus (575 cars).

At the other end of the scale, a particularly low motorisation rate is recorded in Romania (261 cars), despite a growth in the number of registered cars of almost 19% over the last five years. However, the motorisation rate is still substantially lower in the candidate countries than in the EU Member States, with a motorisation rate of 134 cars per 1000 inhabitants (Turkey).

Passenger cars with small petrol engines more common than medium-sized and large engines in the majority of Member States

In 15 of the 23 Member States for which information is available, the majority of passenger cars were powered by a petrol engine in 2015. The eightMember States where there were more diesel cars than petrol cars were Belgium, Spain, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Austria and Portugal.

In Malta, more than half of all passenger cars had small petrol engines in 2015. In Malta, the share of small petrol-driven passenger cars was 56% of the total, followed by Hungary with 49%. In Cyprus, medium sized petrol engines powered 48% of the passenger cars. Large petrol engines can be found in passenger cars in particular in Estonia (12% of all passenger cars) and Finland (9.6%) and in the EFTA countries Lichtenstein (20%) and Switzerland (14%).

Overall, passenger cars with small engines usually use petrol as fuel; there are relatively few passenger cars with small diesel engines in the EU. The medium sized engines dominate amongst the diesel-powered passenger cars in all Member States for which data are available. This is in particular the case for countries with the highest overall share of diesel powered passenger cars, France and Belgium, as well as in the other countries (Austria and Spain) where more than half of the passenger cars were diesel cars.

Despite efforts across Europe to increase the share of cars with low CO² emissions, the share of passenger cars powered by alternative fuels remained low in most Member States in 2015. In most of the Member States, passenger cars using alternative energy represented less than 1% of the total passenger car fleet. The most striking exception is Poland, where the share of passenger cars powered by alternative fuels reached 16% in 2015. This is to a large extent due to a high number of cars retro-fitted for LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) use. Other countries with notable shares of passenger cars using alternative fuels are Italy and Latvia (both 8%) and Sweden (6%).

Old passenger car fleets in the Baltic States and in Poland

Several Member States reported a large share of ’old’ passenger cars (20 years or older) in 2015. The Member States with the highest shares were Poland (33%), Estonia (26%), Latvia (22%) and Finland (21%). In contrast, the shares of the ’youngest’ passenger cars (less than 2 years old) were highest in Luxembourg (33%), Belgium and Ireland (both with 21%) and Austria (18%).

In the last years, a number of countries had in place programmes supporting purchases of new cars with low emissions while scrapping the owners’ old car. The general aims of these programmes were the renewal of the passenger car fleet with lower emission cars, while simultaneously stimulating the economy. These programmes have had a certain influence on the age composition of passenger cars in individual countries. Such programmes were set up in almost half of the Member States; in this context, one should take note of the reference year when analysing these data.

Data sources and availability

Data source:

The Eurostat/ITF/UNECE Common Questionnaire on Inland Transport.

Coverage:

The data in this article covers the EU Member States, the EFTA countries and the candidate countries (list of countries and the corresponding country codes).

Definitions:

All definitions used are taken from the Eurostat/UNECE/ITF Glossary for Transport Statistics, currently in its 4th edition. This glossary can be found on Eurostat’s website: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=KS-RA-10-028

Passenger cars

Road motor vehicle, other than a moped or a motor cycle, intended for the carriage of passengers and designed to seat no more than nine persons (including the driver).

Included are:

Passenger cars
Vans designed and used primarily for transport of passengers
Taxis
Hire cars
Ambulances
Motor homes
Micro-cars (needing no permit to be driven)

Excluded are light goods road vehicles, as well as motor-coaches and buses, and mini-buses/mini-coaches.

Motor energy

The principal type of motor energy used by the vehicle as certified by the competent authority of the country of registration. For hybrid or dual-fuelled vehicles adapted for using more than one type of motor energy (e.g. LPG and petrol, or electricity and diesel, etc.), the principal type of motor energy should be, where possible, an alternative fuel.

Alternative fuel

A type of motor energy other than the conventional fuels, petrol and diesel. Alternative fuels include electricity, LPG, natural gas (NGL or CNG), alcohols, mixtures of alcohols with other fuels, hydrogen, bio-fuels (such as biodiesel), etc. (this list is not exhaustive). Alternative fuels do not include unleaded petrol, reformulated petrol or city (low-sulphur) diesel.

Motorisation rate

The number of registered passenger cars per 1000 inhabitants.

Context

The Common Questionnaire on Inland Transport is a joint project of Eurostat, the International Transport Forum (ITF) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The data are provided on a voluntary basis by a large number of countries, both within and outside the European Union. Data is collected from reliable sources, but data collection methodologies are not harmonised at EU level. Comparability across countries is restricted as the classifications used in the national vehicle registers are not harmonised. Vehicle registers may exclude taxis, pick-up and vans, and may also exclude very old vehicles. This article covers data provided by the EU member states, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries and EU enlargement countries.

Further Eurostat information

Publications

Energy, transport and environment indicators — 2014 edition

Database

Transport, see:

Road transport (road)

Road transport equipment - Stock of vehicles (road_eqs)

Road transport equipment - New registration of vehicles (road_eqr)

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