Sales of battery models and plug-in hybrids are falling in May, and their market share is even smaller than in 2023. Europe is doubling us.
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Late last year Wayne Griffiths, as president of Anfac, asked the government to take action to revive car sales. Especially the forked model. “We can’t waste any more time,” he said, demanding action now, in the first quarter of 2024. The year is about to cross the equator, but nothing is in sight. It’s not even known if the electric car bailout will continue after July 31, when it expires.
But the market keeps sending signals. The latest, a very powerful one, occurred in May: while total passenger car sales reached 95,158 units, up 3.8%, sales of pure electric and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) fell 11.9% with just 9,180 transactions.
Some might mitigate this fact by saying that May’s decline was almost entirely due to PHEVs. True, but that doesn’t hide the fact that the share of plug-in vehicles in Spain this year is just 10.4%, four-tenths less than in 2023.
What’s more, the data doesn’t bear comparison with the environment. According to the European manufacturers’ association Acea, these types of cars accounted for 19.2% of registrations in the EU between January and April; 18.2% in Germany, 26.1% in France and 28.2% in Portugal. If we take the quota for purely electric passenger cars alone, it would be even worse: the EU would double us and France would triple us.
