New car market sales for July across Europe totalled more than 852,000 units, a marginal rise of under 1% over the same period in 2023. This increase was driven by hybrid sales, including mild and PHEVs and the only segment to record growth in the month, according to ACEA.

Two of the top five markets saw overall segment drops of around 2% (France and Germany), while the struggling Italian market actually saw a healthy rise of 4.7% in total sales, in the period until the end of July.

Germany saw electric vehicle registrations drop heavily, by 36.8% in July. One reason for this drop in sales was the slow down in government financial incentives for EV vehicle purchases, meaning the cost of the cars is too high for many buyers.

Conversely, the Netherlands recorded an 8.9% increase in electric vehicle registrations in the same period, and Belgium revealed that EV registrations rose by 44.2% in July.

Petrol car sales fell 7% in July, with Spain experiencing a plunge of 12.5% and France recording a 22.6% decrease. However, Germany announced a 0.1% increase in petrol car sales and Italy revealed a 3.8% increase. 

Diesel car registrations also decreased across Europe. This was mainly driven by Italy, which saw a 24.6% drop, as well as Spain, which recorded 11.6% drop, and France which recorded a 23.9% drop. However, Germany noted a slight increase of 1.4% in diesel car registrations.

Recognising that the desired uptake in EVs slowed, manufacturers started to put a greater focus in marketing the positives of the hybrid. As a result, there was a sizeable jump of more than 25% to around 273,000 hybrid unit sales in July – some 56,000 more than the same period last year. Excluding this technology from the overall figure, the EU new-car market would have suffered a delivery drop of 8.5% in the month.