Press release: 12.607-198/21

Vienna, 2021-09-09 –In August 2021, 17 719 new passenger cars were registered, as Statistics Austria reports. This is a decrease of 15.2% compared to the same month last year. The total number of newly registered motor vehicles declined to 29 216 (-5.3%). Compared to pre-crisis level of August 2019 with 29 888 newly registered passenger cars and a total of 39 808 motor vehicles, this represents a drop in new registrations of 40.7% and 26.6%, respectively.

"Alternatively powered passenger cars are in the fast lane: In August 2021, the share of newly registered passenger cars with electric or hybrid drive was 42.2% and thus for the first time ahead of the conventional drive forms petrol with 35.1% and diesel with 22.7%," says Statistics Austria Director General Tobias Thomas.

Diesel-powered passenger cars (4 016, share: 22.7%) and petrol-powered passenger cars (6 225, share: 35.1%) recorded declines of 47.8% and 33.1%, respectively. The share of alternative drive systems reached 42.2% among new passenger car registrations in August 2021 (August 2020: 18.7%; August 2019: 7.8%), exceeding the shares of conventional drive systems petrol and diesel, respectively, for the first time. Among the alternative drive systems, passenger cars with electric drive (3 200; share: 18.1%; +183.9%), passenger cars with petrol-hybrid drive (3 272; share: 18.5%; +57.5%) and passenger cars with diesel-hybrid drive (998; share: 5.6%; +49.0%) achieved significant increases.

The top-ten passenger car makes are led by VW (share: 17.2%), Skoda (share: 7.4%) and BMW (share: 6.2%). Declines were observed for all top 10 makes in August 2021 (Hyundai: -45.1%, Ford: -29.0%, Renault: -28.3%, Mercedes: -28.0%, Seat: -14.6%, Skoda: -14.0%, VW: -11.7%, Fiat: -7.0%, Audi: -4.0%, BMW: -3.0%).

Compared to the same month of the previous year, more new registrations of commercial vehicles were recorded for lorries class N1 (+58.7%), tractors used for agriculture and forestry (+57.2%), lorries class N2 (+51.9%), lorries class N3 (+33.5%) and articulated lorries (+2.9%). Campers were able to increase again with a plus of 31.5%.

Regarding the two-wheeler market, fewer scooters (1 264; -20.6%) and motorcycles (3 214; -9.4%) were newly registered in August 2021.

January to August 2021: over a quarter less new passenger car registrations than in pre-Corona times

172 017 new passenger car registrations have been recorded so far in 2021, representing an increase of 8.5% compared to the same period last year. Compared to the 237 225 new passenger car registrations from January to August 2019, new registrations in 2021 are still down by 27.5%.

Among new passenger car registrations, diesel-powered passenger cars decreased by 28.2% and 52.5%, respectively, and those of petrol-powered passenger cars decreased by 6.3% and 47.4%, respectively, compared to 2020 and 2019. Among alternatively powered passenger cars, increases were observed in purely electric passenger cars (+193.6% and +220.2%, respectively), diesel-hybrid passenger cars (+152.6% and +318.2%, respectively), and petrol-hybrid passenger cars (+112.2% and +308.9%, respectively) from January to August 2021 compared with 2020 and 2019. As a result, the share of alternatively powered passenger cars is increasingly rising (2021: 35.2%; 2020: 16.0%; 2019: 6.9%).

Compared to 2020, new registrations of commercial vehicles are up across the board (lorries class N1: +67.8%; articulated lorries: +47.3%; tractors used for agriculture and forestry: +35.8%; lorries class N3: +21.2%; lorries class N2: +3.1%). Compared to 2019, however, only tractors used for agriculture and forestry (+39.2%) and lorries class N1 (+28.3%) achieved gains. There were fewer new registrations for class N2 lorries (-39.0%), articulated lorries (-22.3%) and class N3 lorries (-19.7%) compared to 2019.

With 3 492 campers, an increase of 82.1% was observed compared to 2020 (1 918 new registrations), compared to 2019 (1 529) the number more than doubled (+128.4%). As for two-wheelers, 28 320 motorcycles were newly registered in the first eight months of this year, showing a positive development of 13.8% compared to 2020 and 14.8% compared to 2019. With 9 964 scooters, new registrations are slightly behind 2020 (-0.7%) and 8.3% behind 2019.

Overall, 270 679 new motor vehicles were registered from January to August 2021, 16.8% more than in the same period last year. Compared to 2019, however, total new motor vehicle registrations are down by 15.7%.

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, 
Stefan PREMM, Tel.: +43 1 71128-7598 resp. stefan.premm@statistik.gv.at and 
Thomas JANKA, Tel.: +43 1 71128-7575 resp. thomas.janka@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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©  STATISTICS AUSTRIA, Last Changed 09.09.2021

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