Alina Oprea • 19 April, 2023 at 8:57 AM
The month of March 2023 comes with a 12.7% increase in vehicle registrations compared to a similar month of the previous year. If we refer to previous years, March 2023 is up by 52% compared to a similar period in 2021, by 81.4% compared to March 2020 and by 21.5% compared to March 2019, informs the Association of Manufacturers and Importers of Automobiles from Romania (APIA). After 12,120 new cars were registered in March, the total for the first three months rose to 36,592 units. Of these, 3,130 are fully electric, 1,269 are plug-in hybrids, 2,981 are "full hybrids", 24,539 are petrol powered and 4,673 are diesel.
Fully electric cars thus hold, after the first quarter of 2023, a share of 8.6% of the market, higher than the 7.3% in a similar period of 2022.
"Like in 2022, when, although there was a decrease in the purchases of passenger cars in general, the "green" ones performed, in 2023, purchases in this category increased considerably (+34.8%) compared to the same period of the year last. In this context, the important increase of 100% electric (+48.8%) and plug-in hybrid (+32%) cars is worth noting", the APIA report shows.
In the period from January to March 2023, it is worth noting the evolution at the top of the ranking of fully electric cars, where the first five are Dacia Spring, with 1,559 units and an increase of 63.8% compared to the same period of the previous year, Renault Megane E-Tech Electric with 217 units, still non-existent on the market in the similar period of 2022, Volkswagen e-Up! (184 units, up 132.9%), Tesla Model Y (142 units, up 688.9%) and Tesla Model 3 (108 units, down 29.9%).
In terms of plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV), the Top 5 is led by the Ford Kuga with 199 units and an increase of 99% compared to the same period of the previous year, the SUV followed by the Mazda CX-60 with 91 units, with no registrations in the same period of 2022, Mercedes-Benz GLE with 83 units and up 6.4%, Renault Captur with 67 units, up 28.8% and Volkswagen Tiguan with 67 units, up 86.1%.
Hybrid cars without external recharging are topped by Toyota Corolla with 508 units, up 17.9% from 2022, followed by Toyota RAV4 with 400 units and a 32% increase, then Toyota Yaris with 338 units, up 60.2%.