Europe will switch entirely to electric cars in just over a decade, but sales growth for these eco-friendly vehicles has slowed in the first half of the year.
Instead, data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) showed that the modest overall growth of 4.4% in European new car sales came mainly from hybrid vehicles, AFP reported.
Hybrid sales, excluding plug-in hybrids, rose 21% to just over 2 million units, accounting for nearly 30% of the market.
Sales of battery electric vehicles rose 1.6% to 954,094 units or 13.9% of the market.
Gasoline cars remained the largest segment with a market share of 35.2%, but their sales fell by 1.5%. Sales of diesel cars fell by 7.9%.
Sales of vehicles using fuel cells, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, super ethanol and other fuels saw growth of 6.9%.
European carmakers have pledged to shift production to battery electric vehicles, but have recently appeared frustrated by a lack of sales growth despite introducing more models.
The slowdown in consumption is because in some countries government incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles have decreased and that there are still few models available to people on modest incomes.
ACEA said that while overall sales in the European car market increased slightly in the first half of the year to nearly 6.9 million vehicles, they remained significantly below pre-pandemic levels.
In the first half of 2018, about 8.7 million cars were sold in Europe.| BGNES
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