In a document published on April 1, 2022, the Automobile Platform (PFA) unveils the figures for the automotive market in France for the month of March 2022. For the first time, the share of plug-in electric cars represents more than 20% of total sales (21.4%)this represents a strong increase compared to the same period in 2021.
Electric could take over from diesel
In March 2022, the French automobile market recorded 181,134 registrations. A drop of 21.41% compared to March 2021. This is the observation made by automotive analysts in recent weeks: car sales are in free fall compared to the previous year. If we take the first quarter of the year 2022, we see an overall decrease of 18.79% compared to 2021. We are still far from the figures of 2019. Before the health crisis, car manufacturers had achieved a record month of March 2019 with almost 240,000 registrations.
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Another observation made by analysts: the share of sales of diesel vehicles is falling, while that of electric vehicles is increasing. In March 2020, the share of diesel on all vehicle sales in France represented 31%. It fell to 14% in March of this year. Conversely, the share of electric vehicle sales has increased. The big winners again this month were the plug-in electric vehicles which represent a total of 21.4% of sales, including 13.5% for 100% electric vehicles, 7.9% for rechargeable hybrid vehicles and 18.9% for non-rechargeable hybrids.
Tesla sells the most electric cars in France
While petrol cars still represent 39.1% of the market, observers believe that electric vehicles could gain the upper hand over diesel during 2022. In its inventory, the Automobile Platform also realized a ranking of the best-selling electric vehicles in France. Without surprise, it’s the Tesla Model 3 (3,882 copies sold) which won the competition. In second place, we find the Dacia Spring (2,111 copies) and just behind comes the Peugeot E-208 (1,842 copies).
The electric trend should continue to progress over the next few years. Between 2020 and 2021, sales of electric cars had already doubled. The builders almost all go electric. We know for example that the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance will manufacture 35 new electric vehicles by 2030 to weigh against the Volkswagen group and Stellantis. In Asia, Toyota presented 17 new electric concepts in December 2021. With an investment of 15.6 billion euros, the Japanese manufacturer is targeting 3.5 million sales by 2030. The momentum is on the electric side .