Western Europe's new pure electric (BEV) passenger car market experienced a healthy September, with BEV penetration accounting for one-fifth of the region's total new passenger car market for only the fifth time.
Perhaps even more significantly, the 20.5% market share penetration achieved by pure electric BEV-only cars in September was achieved in a month that wasn't a final month of the year where all other 20% plus market shares have been achieved with the exception of last August which was impacted by a pull-forward effect.
August 2023 was the final month that purchase subsidies remained for German corporate drivers and consequently boosted the usually slow summer month to a BEV market mix of 23.8% and subsequently, August 2024 growth was impacted negatively.
The market inherently pushes to meet fleet emission CO2 targets at the end of each year, which caused the final month of the past three years to be the only other occasion where BEVs accounted for at least one-fifth of the new passenger car market.
September saw the BEV market recover from the slow start to the year on the back of German purchase subsidies being removed from 2024, as well as the pull-forward impact earlier this year, in June (details in our study), and the consequent hangover into July.
The UK boosted the region in September, being the largest market in terms of volumes and accounting for one quarter of the total region's new BEV volumes.
Its twice-annual boost from the registration plate changeover, which concentrates a large proportion of its new car volumes into March and September, saw new BEV volumes rise by 24.4% in September over the same month last year, according to SMMT data.
September 2024 was exceptionally strong for UK BEV deliveries, recording its highest volumes ever (56,387) due to manufacturers rushing to push more BEV models onto the market in order to meet the first year of the 22% zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate being introduced in 2024.
The UK's pure electric new car market is now less than 6,500 units behind Germany, while during the same period last year it was 148,800 units behind.
Manufacturers are expected to prioritise UK volumes in 2024 as EU CO2 fleet targets remain unchanged this year.
However, with EU targets falling to 93.6g/km from a mass-fleet weight-based average of around 119g/km currently, that reluctance to deliver lower margin BEVs across the region in 2024 is likely to change during 2025 with the introduction of a host of lower-priced entry-level models which will result in a large boost to the market next year.
The 12-month rolling BEV mix of the 18-market West European region's new car market rose slightly to 16.5% in the most recent 12-month period up to the end of September 2024, while year to date the market saw 15.9% of the new car market accounted for BEV models, which was 0.5ppts lower than during the same period last year, which included the boost from Germany during August 2023.
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*Western Europe 18 Markets: EU Member States prior to the 2004 enlargement plus EFTA markets Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, plus UK
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