In the first 3 quarters

New registrations of electric cars declined

(Bild: ©Nischaporn - stock.adobe.com)

New car registrations increased in the first three quarters, but electric cars lost popularity: out of 191,023 vehicles, only 32,632 electric cars were newly registered - a decline of 6.5 percent compared to the same period last year, according to Statistics Austria. 

In general, new car registrations rose by 4.4 percent. Statistics Austria also observed that the registration figures for electric cars rose again slightly in September - the authority recorded an increase of 3.9 percent.

Petrol hybrid drives scored well
In the first three quarters, 64,604 petrol cars and 35,122 diesel cars were registered. While new registrations of petrol cars rose by 7.6 percent, diesel registrations fell by 3.7 percent. Cars with purely conventional drive systems accounted for 52.2 percent of all new registrations. Among the alternative drive systems, cars with petrol hybrid drives scored highly: Here, registration figures rose by 18.3 percent to 47,836 passenger cars. Only 10,796 passenger cars were diesel hybrids (-2.1 percent).

At 68.1%, the majority of new registrations were accounted for by legal entities, companies and local authorities. Diesel and diesel hybrids were particularly popular here, followed by purely electric cars.

VW was the most popular new car
VW once again led the brand ranking in the first nine months with 14.9 percent, followed by Skoda (9.8 percent) and BMW (7.4 percent). Dacia, Toyota and BMW recorded increases in new registrations, while Tesla, Hyundai and Audi recorded declines.

New registrations of two-wheelers were rather stable: 9693 motorcycles (up 1.8 percent) and 32,947 motorcycles (down 0.8 percent) were newly registered. Among commercial vehicles, trucks up to twelve tons were in particular demand. At 485 vehicles, new registrations rose by 63.9 percent. In addition, 25,614 trucks up to 3.5 tons were registered - 12.4 percent more than in the same period last year. And there were 3042 new registrations for trucks over twelve tons (up 16.1 percent). There was a 13.7 percent decrease in the number of 2926 tractor units. New registrations of agricultural and forestry tractors fell by 2.4 percent to 5325 vehicles.