Press release: 12.584-175/21

One-fifth fewer new passenger car registrations in July 2021; alternative drives rising again

Vienna, 2021-08-10 – According to Statistics Austria, 19 902 passenger cars were newly registered in July 2021. This is 4 882 fewer than in July 2020 (-19.7%). The total number of new registrations of motor vehicles also decreased compared to the same month last year. With 32 632 vehicles, 5 321 fewer were newly registered than in July 2020 (-14.0%).

New registrations of petrol-powered passenger cars (-28.5%; share: 39.3%) and those of diesel-powered passenger cars (-47.5%; share: 25.1%) declined. Among the alternatively powered passenger cars, there were increases for passenger cars with electric drive (+87.0%; share: 10.0%), diesel-hybrid drive (+67.3%; share: 5.7%) and petrol-hybrid drive (+55.2%; share: 19.9%). As a result, alternative drive systems achieved an overall share of 35.6% of newly registered passenger cars in July 2021. With 7 088 vehicles, passenger cars with alternative drives recorded an increase of 63.2% compared to July 2020.

Among the top-ten passenger car makes, new registrations increased only for Dacia (+45.1%). In contrast, decreases were recorded for Renault (-49.2%), Skoda (-38.3%), Seat (-32.0%), Ford (-29.0%), Mercedes (-23.2%), VW (-19.4%), Hyundai (-15.1%), BMW (-3.9%) and Audi (-1.4%) in July 2021. VW had the highest share with 15.6%, followed by Skoda with a share of 8.3% and BMW with 7.1%.

Compared to the same month last year, the commercial vehicle market recorded more new registrations of articulated lorries (+62.4%), tractors used for agriculture and forestry (+27.7%), lorries class N1 (+9.4%) and lorries class N3 (+6.1%). There were fewer new registrations of class N2 lorries (-33.3%).

Among two-wheelers, fewer scooters (-30.7%) as well as fewer motorcycles (-8.1%) were newly registered in July 2021.

New registrations January to July 2021: one-eighth more passenger cars than in 2020, but one-fourth fewer than in 2019

In calendar year 2021 to date, 154 298 new passenger cars were registered, an increase of 12.2% compared to the same period last year. Diesel passenger cars declined by 25.3% to 39 123 and petrol-powered passenger cars by 2.4% to 62 161 vehicles. In contrast, increases were observed for electric-drive passenger cars (17 337; +195.4%), diesel-hybrid-drive passenger cars (8 559; +174.9%) and petrol-hybrid-drive passenger cars (27 045; +121.5%). Compared with the period from January to July 2019, the total number of new passenger car registrations for the calendar year 2021 to date has fallen by 53 039 or 25.6% (diesel: -50.8%; petrol: -45.3%; diesel-hybrid: +339.1%; petrol-hybrid: +332.0%; electric: +208.8%).

Of the new passenger car registrations from January to July 2021, 66.1% were registered by legal entities, companies and local authorities; the share of private vehicle owners was 33.9%. The share of legal entities, companies and local authorities is even higher for newly register electric passenger cars, namely at 84.1% (14 585 vehicles). Only 2 752 electric cars (share: 15.9%) were newly registered by private vehicle owners.

A total of 241 463 new motor vehicles were registered from January to July 2021. This is 20.2% more than in the same period in 2020, but 14.1% less than from January to July 2019.

For more detailed results and further information concerning statistics of motor vehicles please refer to our website.

Information on methods, definitions: Motor vehicle statistics (registrations of new and used vehicles as well as the stock of vehicles) are secondary statistics, compiled on the basis of daily data files sent to Statistics Austria by Austria’s association of insurance companies (VVO). VVO, in turn, receives data by the insurances’ registrations offices, responsible for registrations, de-registrations and rectifications of motor vehicles and trailers. 
Within motor vehicle statistics, all motor vehicles, once nationally or internationally registered, are levied, irrespective of the registration’s duration.

For further inquiries please contact Directorate Spatial Statistics, Statistics Austria:  
Gerda FISCHER, Tel. +43 1 71128-7566 resp. gerda.fischer@statistik.gv.at and 
Stefan PREMM, Tel.: +43 1 71128-7598 resp. stefan.premm@statistik.gv.at

Media owner, producer and publisher: 
STATISTICS AUSTRIA, Federal Institution under Public Law 
1110 Vienna, Austria, Guglgasse 13, Tel.: +43 1 71128-7777 
presse@statistik.gv.at  
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