AUTOMOTIVE STUDY 2025 / Šaroch (ed.) et al.

2.2 Changing market for new passenger cars in the EU, EV sales on the rise Over the last twenty years or so, the European passenger car market has undergone signi cant changes, in uenced by economic cycles and regulatory measures. Periods of growth and decline in sales have re ected the macroeconomic situation as well as changing legislation and consumer preferences. e global nancial crisis of 2008– 2009 caused a sharp decline in sales as the economic recession reduced household purchasing power. In response, some countries introduced scrappage schemes, which partly supported the market. While before the crisis around 14.2 million passenger cars were sold in the EU per year, in 2009 the gure was „only“ 11.5 million passenger cars. After a brief recovery in 2010, the eurozone was hit by the debt crisis, which again reduced sales, especially in southern Europe, a ecting overall sales in the EU28, which fell back to 11 million passenger cars sold. Since 2013, the market has started to stabilise and has shown moderate growth. Stricter emission standards, especially Euro 6, which came into force in 2015, played a key role. is year, however, customer con dence was shaken by the Dieselgate scandal, which exposed the manipulation of emissions tests. In the years that followed, demand for SUVs grew and the rst mainstream EVs began to appear, responding to EU pressure to reduce CO emissions. 2019 brought further major changes with strict eet emission limits, prompting automakers to invest massively in electri cation. 2020 saw a signi cant drop in passenger car registrations to 9,939k cars, re ecting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Total registrations, including the UK, reached 11,570k vehicles. e decline continued in 2021, when 9,700 thousand new passenger cars were registered in the EU27. e year 2022 saw a further decline in registrations to 9,264 thousand units, down 4.5% year-on-year. is trend was seen in most major EU economies, except for Germany, which saw a slight increase in registrations of around one per cent. e year 2023 was already a year of return to growth, with 10,547,716 new passenger car registrations in the EU, representing a 13.9% growth compared to 2022. Except for Hungary (-3.4%), all Member States experienced year-on-year growth in new passenger car registrations in 2023.

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