Diesels capture 70.7% of new vehicle market in France in January; hybrids and EVs account for 0.5%
07 February 2011
Diesel vehicles accounted for 70.7% of new vehicle registrations in France in January, up a point (131,230 units), while gasoline models fell by a point, to 26.3% (48,876 units).
Registrations of vehicles running on LPG rose by 18.6% to 4,282 units, representing 2.3% market share. Hybrid sales dropped 3.3% to 889 units. The Auris was the best selling model (463 units), ahead of the Prius (171 units). Toyota dominates the hybrid segment (87% of sales).
In January, PSA Peugeot Citroën registered its first electric cars (54 Peugeot iOn and 30 Citroën C-Zero). Other results include 9 Mitsubishi i-MiEVs; 4 smart eds; 2 Renault Fluence; and 1 Tesla Roadster.
Combined, hybrids and EVs represented about 0.5% of the new vehicle market in January.
EU, with many smaller more efficient 50+ mpg diesel vehicles get more than twice as many miles per gallon as we do.
Higher fuel taxes (specially on gasoline) are one of the main reason.
New more efficient gas vehicles, such as the new Hyundai Sonata and Elantra, will have similar lower fuel consumption when equipped with stop and go mechanism.
Posted by: HarveyD | 07 February 2011 at 03:06 PM
I have a theory that you cannot have large sales of efficient vehicles without expensive fuel.
That is why we have > 50% diesel in Europe and the Prius as #1 seller in Japan.
Some concerned people buy hybrids in the USA, but it hasn't gone mainstream because it doesn't make economic sense (with the current price of gas).
In the US, the only thing that works are the CAFE standards [IMHO] looking from Europe.
The good news for the US is that a lot of techniques are pioneered in Japan and Europe (by globalised, American owned companies), so they will be able to adopt them reasonably quickly (say in 10 years).
Posted by: mahonj | 08 February 2011 at 10:33 AM