Europe's new car market continues its recovery

TALLINN - Sales of new passenger cars in the European Union continue to rise, though they still remain below pre-pandemic levels.

In November, 887,491 new passenger cars were sold in the European Union, a 2.1 percent increase over the sales results from November of last year. In total, 9.86 million new cars have been sold in the first 11 months of this year, which is 1.4 percent more than in the same period of the previous year.

Sales figures for hybrid cars have seen the fastest growth, with their market share reaching 43.9 percent of total sales in November. The sale of electric cars is also growing, albeit slowly, accounting for a 16.9 percent share. Gasoline cars were preferred by 27 percent of consumers, while diesel cars were chosen by 9 percent.

Among the European Union's largest markets, new passenger car sales in November rose by 12.9 percent in Spain and 2.5 percent in Germany, while sales in France and Italy remained at the previous year's level.

In the Baltic states, a year-long trend continued into November: while new passenger car sales grew robustly in Lithuania and Latvia, by 37.3 percent and 21.5 percent respectively, sales in Estonia plummeted by 64.3 percent.