ROME – Diesel is still the most popular fuel in 2020 among the new light commercial vehicles in the European Union. This is revealed by the latest data from the European automobile manufacturers association (Acea), which show how this type of fuel represented 92.4% of the van market. Although last year the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic dragged down the overall performance of the EU market, sales of electric and hybrid vans increased. Electric charging vehicles (Ecvs) accounted for 2.0% of total van sales across the region (up from 1.3% in 2019), while hybrid vans accounted for 0.9% of the market EU in 2020 (compared to 0.3% the previous year).
Last year, the number of diesel vans sold across the European Union (data for Bulgaria, Malta and Lithuania not available) decreased by 17.2% to 1.3 million units, with all 27 markets of the EU in decline. But despite this decrease in volume, the market share of diesel-fueled light commercial vehicles grew from 91.7% in 2019 to 92.4% in 2020. The overall decline in van registrations caused by Covid-19 has hit the most petrol-driven vehicles are hard to come by, so much so that last year only 49,056 petrol vans were registered across the EU, about half the number of those registered in 2019.
With the exception of Latvia, all EU markets have filed a decline in registrations of petrol vans throughout 2020, including the main four, and consequently, the share of petrol vehicles in the EU van market has increased since 5.1% in 2019 to 3.4% last year. In total in 2020, the demand for new electrically rechargeable vans increased by 26.2% to reach 28,597 units sold, which represents 2.0% of total registrations of light commercial vehicles in the EU. France (9,209 units) and Germany (8,830 units) were the largest markets in terms of volume and together accounted for over 60% of all electric vans sold in the European Union last year.
Moving on to registrations of new hybrid vans in the EU, again in 2020, there was a jump of 175.0% to 12,698. This threefold increase (compared to 4,617 hybrid vans sold in 2019) is partly the result of a low base of comparison, as hybrid electric vehicles (Hevs) still accounted for less than 1% of total light commercial vehicle sales in the region. . Finally, as regards the demand for vans with alternative fuels in 2020 (natural gas vehicles, LPG, biofuels and ethanol) we find a decrease of 29.5% (19,346 units), as the two main markets for these vehicles recorded a high drop: Italy at -28.7% and Spain at -53.2%). As a result, the market share of natural gas and LPG powered vans at the EU level decreased from 1.6% in 2019 to 1.3% last year.
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