Almost one in two new cars registered in Belgium was electric in the first nine months of 2023, according to an analysis published on Tuesday by the Belgian automobile and cycle federation (FEBIAC).
These electric cars are predominantly company cars, the federation underlined.
Over the first nine months of the year, petrol remained the most popular engine but is declining, accounting for 43.7% of new car registrations. Petrol outstrips plug-in hybrid (PHEV, 20.4% of registrations), 100% electric (18.3%) and plug-in hybrid (HEV, 7.4%). Diesel, which was still in the lead a few years ago, now accounts for less than one in ten new car registrations (9.3%).
Private customers continue to prefer petrol (67.7%) over electric. Business customers, meanwhile, tend to opt for plug-in rechargeable cars (BEV & PHEV), with a 52.4% share of the market. "The taxation of company cars plays a part in this, of course," FEBIAC notes.
"The definitive example of the inevitable breakthrough of electric vehicles in the Belgian car market is the fact that the most-registered model in Belgium in the first nine months of 2023, all vehicles combined, is a 100% electric car: the Tesla Model Y." This model is also the most-registered in Flanders, while the Dacia Sandero is the most-registered model in Wallonia and the Volvo XC40 the most-registered model in Brussels.
The rising number of electric cars on the roads is driving down the average CO2 emissions of new cars registered on the Belgian market to a new low of 86 g/km. This represents a fall of 18.1% compared with 2022, FEBIAC states.
