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European sales of electric vehicles have nosed ahead of diesels
But they still trail petrol-powered cars by a distance
A crippling shortage of chips for carmakers led to a slump in car sales in Europe in August. Around a third fewer vehicles hit the road than in August 2019, before the pandemic struck, according to JATO, a data firm. That may be bad news for the environment: fewer car sales means drivers are hanging on to older, more polluting cars for longer. But JATO notes some good climate news, too. Nearly a quarter of the cars sold in Europe last month were full electric vehicles (EVs) or plug-in hybrids. Registrations of such cars across 26 European markets outstripped diesel vehicles for the first time.
The switch to EVs had started to accelerate in Europe before the virus struck. But over the past 18 months a growing choice of models, particularly cheaper ones, falling running costs and customers, with more time during lockdown, perhaps giving more thought to the environment, have turned an uptick into a surge. Volkswagen’s ID3 topped the EV sales charts in August (although the best seller overall was the Dacia Sandero, a hatchback from Renault’s budget brand, powered by fossil fuels).
As battery power advances in Europe, diesel is declining. Once seen as the answer to cleaner motoring because more efficient engines make for fewer carbon-dioxide emissions than equivalent petrol-engine vehicles, diesel has been widely demonised since “Dieselgate” in 2015, when Volkswagen admitted cheating on emissions tests and paid billions in fines. The technology, which not long ago received billions in subsidies from European governments, now faces bans in some big European cities with the threat of more to come. In 2011 diesel accounted for 55% of car sales in Europe; in August only 20% of registrations had a diesel under the bonnet.
But EVs still have a long way to travel. Although the European Union hopes to match the pronouncements of some national governments and ban sales of internal-combustion engine vehicles by 2035, the plan is sure to stir up opposition in Germany and France, where carmakers argue that they will continue to rely on the profits from cars powered by fossil fuels to fund the transition to battery power. ■