According to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) EU truck sales were down 4% in the first quarter of 2024. This amounted to 85,296 new trucks registered in the first three months of the year. The ACEA explained the drop was due to a 5.4% decrease in heavy-truck sales even though medium truck sales grew by 5%.
Germany and France experienced a minor dip in sales of 2.2% and 0.3%, respectively. Elsewhere, Spain and Italy saw a strong start to the year with sales increasing by 15.7% and 6.6%, respectively.
Diesel was still the preferred fuel for trucks with 95.5% of new registrations being diesel vehicles. This dropped 4.5% compared with the previous year thanks to the expansion of infrastructure to support other fuel types such as electric. Truck sales for vehicles powered by battery electric powertrains grew by 29.5% bringing the total electric truck market share up to nearly 2%. This is up from 1.4% last year, indicating an increasing appetite for electric trucks. Germany was the largest adopter of electric trucks in the first quarter. The country saw growth of 173.7% which totalled 56% of electric truck sales in the EU.
While truck sales were down slightly, bus sales enjoyed a good start to the year with EU registrations up by 23.3% compared with the first quarter of 2023. Total sales for the start of 2024 came to 9,624 units. Demand in France was down by 16.8% but strong sales in Germany, Italy and Spain saw overall sales boom.
Van sales also saw a positive start to the year, up 12.6%. Diesel was the preferred fuel option with a 84.2% market share and petrol models accounted for a 6.1% share. ELectric van sales were up slightly by 4.2%, securing a market share of 5.8%. Rounding out van sales were hybrid vehicles which saw growth of 12.6% to claim a 2.2% market share.
