Over 30,000 plug-in electric cars registered in France in October 2022

Number of new passenger car sales/registrations in France jumped more than 5 per cent year-over-year to settle at almost 125,000 units in October 2022, though the rate of electric car sales growth wasn’t particularly high.

Marking the continued bounce back of the French automobile market, fresh data revealed that a total of 124,982 new vehicles were registered in the European country last month. The figure included 30,006 new plug-in vehicles, up 6.4 per cent year-over-year. The plug-in segment included 27,969 passenger plug-in cars, up 3.2 per cent year-over-year, representing 22.4 per cent of the market.

In other words, more than one in every five new passenger cars registered in France last month was rechargeable. In October last year, passenger plug-in cars accounted for 20.4 per cent of the total car market in the country. However, the rate of growth of the plug-in segment wasn’t particularly high. The results could be better, but plug-in hybrid car sales are still declining. Luckily, sales of all-electric cars jumped more than 8 per cent to 16,861 units in the month under review.

Regardless of strong sales in October, the year-to-date registrations of nearly 1.24 million new passenger vehicles represent a year-over-year decline of 10 per cent.

Light commercial all-electric vehicles set a new monthly record by attracting 1,996 buyers. More precisely, last month’s new plug-in vehicle registrations included 16,861 units of passenger plug-ins, 11,108 units of passenger PHEVs, 1,996 units of light commercial BEVs, 41 units of light commercial PHEVs.

While registrations of light commercial BEVs jumped 91 per cent, registrations of light commercial PHEVs slipped 37 per cent year-over-year.

Year-to-date (YTD), the French automobile market got more than 269,000 new plug-in electric cars registered, 157,711 units of passenger BEVs (up 29 per cent at 12.7 per cent market share), 99,663 units of passenger PHEVs (down 12 per cent at 8.1 per cent market share), 11,608 units of light commercial BEVs (up 26 per cent), and 494 units of light commercial PHEVs.

Total plug-in registrations jumped 9.6 per cent to settle at 269,476 units. For reference, more than 315,000 plug-in cars were registered in France in the twelve months of 2021.

When it comes to top-selling all-electric models registered last month, the Peugeot e-208 outshined all other EVs with 2,350 new registrations. The new Renault Megane E-Tech and Fiat 500 electric emerged as the second and third most popular models, with 2,109 and 1,276 units registered, respectively.