Market Share for Alternatively Powered Vehicles Grows in Europe

ACEA reports alternatively powered vehicles held a market share of 3.5% in 2020.

Registrations of electric trucks like Daimler's FUSO eCanter increased in the EU in 2020.
Registrations of electric trucks like Daimler's FUSO eCanter increased in the EU in 2020.
Daimler Trucks

The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACE) reports that in 2020, diesel still dominated EU truck registrations in terms of market share (96.4%), while petrol made up only 0.1% of total demand last year. Electrically-chargeable vehicles (ECV) accounted for 0.5% of all new trucks registered across the European Union; all alternatively-powered vehicles (APV) combined held a market share of 3.5% in 2020.

Diesel and petrol trucks

Overall in 2020, registrations of new diesel trucks in the European Union fell by 25.5% to 226,150 units, with demand weakened by the impact of COVID-19. With the exception of Greece, all EU markets posted double-digit declines in diesel sales last year, including the four major ones: Germany (-25.3%), France (-24.7%), Spain (-21.4%) and Italy (-13.0%). This resulted in an EU-wide market share of 96.4% for diesel, down from 97.5% in 2019.

At the same time, only 210 petrol trucks were registered across the entire EU region in 2020, 95% of which were sold in three countries alone: Germany, Finland and Belgium.

Alternatively-powered vehicles (APV)

Registrations of new electrically-chargeable vehicles (ECV) in the European Union went from 745 trucks in 2019 to 1,059 in 2020 (up 42.1%), resulting in a market share of 0.5%. Over 90% of all electric trucks registered across the region were sold in just three markets: Germany (852 units), Romania (76 units) and the Netherlands (41 units). By contrast, in 12 EU countries not a single electrically-chargeable truck was sold last year.

In 2020, EU demand for hybrid trucks increased by 31.5%, although this was mainly the result of a low base of comparison. With 351 units registered last year, hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) still accounted for only 0.1% of all medium and heavy commercial vehicles sold in the European Union.

Alternative fuel vehicles – 99% of which run on natural gas – accounted for the vast majority of alternatively-powered trucks registered last year. Demand increased by 5.8% to 6,861 units, with the market share expanding from 2.1% in 2019 to 2.9% in 2020. This was mostly driven by strong sales of natural gas trucks in Germany, which is now the biggest EU market for these vehicles.

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