• EU registrations fell by 5.2 percent in March compared with March 2023
  • Sales of EVs fell by 11.3 percent as buyers shunned full-electric power
  • Hybrid registrations climbed 12.3 percent, but PHEV sales fell by 6.5 percent

Car sales in Europe dropped in March for the first time this year, but the figures reveal that the pain wasn’t equally distributed. EVs lost a disproportionate number of buyers, adding further stress to automakers who have invested heavily in pure-electric tech while hybrid vehicles increased their slice of the car-buying pie.

EU registrations were still up compared with February’s numbers, but of more importance is that they were down 5.2 percent on the same month last year, the total coming to 1,031,875 units. Figures for January and February 2024 were both up on the 2023 Jan and Feb tallies, according to ACEA.

Related: SUVs Conquer Europe, Now Account For Over Half Of All New Car Sales

But sales of electric cars didn’t only fall by 5.2 percent, they dropped 11.3 percent to 134,397 units as buyers turned away from EVs despite there being more choice in the sector right now than at any time in history. That puts battery electric cars’ share of the overall market at 13 percent, down from 13.9 percent in March of last year.

And by the look of the hybrid sales figures, it’s not hard to work out where most of those EV buyers have gone. Hybrid registrations rose 12.6 percent, lifting their market share from 24.4 percent in March 2023 to 29 percent this past March. Not all hybrids shared the glory, however. PHEV registrations fell by 6.5 percent, taking their market share to 7.1 percent.

But spare a thought for dealers struggling to offload straight petrol and diesel cars. Petrol registrations were down 10.2 percent and diesel’s slumped by a whopping 18.5 percent. Those figures should probably be viewed alongside the market share numbers, though, because they remind us that non-assisted combustion cars are still huge players – for now. Petrol cars’ share of the March sales totals stands at 35.4 percent (down from 37.4 percent) and diesel sales accounted for 12.4 percent (down from 14.4 percent) of overall registrations.