X-ray of the car in the European Union

The 2022 study in the ACEA “Vehicles in Use” report provides an extensive overview of the fleet of motor vehicles on the roads in the European Union, covering passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, medium and heavy commercial vehicles and buses.

By country, the Vehicles in Use report shows the number of motor vehicles used for each vehicle type and how the fleet has evolved over the last decade.

It also provides valuable information per vehicle department for each European country, such as the average age (as well as the year of first registration), the share of each fuel type and the number of vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants.

This 2022 edition covers the 27 Member States of the European Union, plus the EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland), as well as Russia, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Fleet size

In 2020, the EU passenger car fleet increased by 1.2% compared to 2019, with 246.3 million cars on the road in total. The highest growth was recorded in Romania (+ 5.4%) and Slovakia (+ 5.1%), while the French car fleet shrank slightly (-0.3%).

Nearly 29 million trucks are in circulation across the European Union, half of which are in three countries: France (5.9 million trucks), Italy (4.3 million) and Spain (3.9 million).

There are more than 6.2 million medium and heavy commercial vehicles on EU roads, an increase of 1.7% compared to 2019. With around 1.2 million trucks, Poland has the largest fleet by far.

There are 684,285 buses running throughout the European Union, almost half of which are in just three countries: Poland (124,526), ​​Italy (99,883) and France (93,506).

Average age

EU cars are now 11.8 years old on average. Lithuania and Romania have the oldest car fleets, with vehicles almost 17 years old. The newest passenger cars are located in Luxembourg (6.7 years).

The average age of light commercial vehicles in the EU is 11.9 years. Of the four major EU markets, Italy has the oldest truck fleet (13.8 years), followed by Spain (13.3 years).

Trucks are on average 13.9 years old in the European Union. With an average age of 21.4 years, Greece has the oldest truck fleet, while the youngest are located in Luxembourg (6.7 years) and Austria (7 years).

EU buses are on average 12.8 years old. With an age of over 19, the Greek buses are the oldest in the area. Only six countries in the European Union have a fleet of buses less than 10 years old.

Fuel type

Despite strong sales growth in recent years, alternative passenger cars still make up only 5.3% of the EU’s total car fleet. Battery-powered electric cars and plug-in hybrids make up just 0, 5% and 0.6% of the fleet, while 1.2% of all cars on EU roads are hybrid electric.

Diesel-powered light commercial vehicles continue to dominate in all EU countries except Greece: 91.2% of the EU van fleet runs on diesel and only 0.4% of trucks in the EU are battery-powered .

96.3% of all trucks in the European Union run on diesel, while petrol is less than 1% of the fleet. 0.24% of trucks on EU roads have zero emissions, up from 0.04% in 2019.

Diesel buses represent 93.5% of the EU fleet, with only 0.9% being battery-powered and 1.4% hybrid. However, significant shares of electric buses are located in the Netherlands (12.4%) and Luxembourg (6.6%).

Motorization rates

The European Union has 560 passenger cars and 81 commercial vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants.

Luxembourg has the highest car density in the EU (696 per 1,000 people), followed by Italy (666). In contrast, the lowest density for both cars (353) and commercial vehicles (40) is in Latvia.

In Latvia almost 43% of all households do not have a car, while almost 32% of French families have two passenger cars.

Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news