European diesel light vehicle market share last year increased to 35.9 percent from a previous high of 32.3 percent in 2000, according to Ricardo Consulting Engineers.
Diesel car sales in 2001 rose an impressive 12.1 percent to reach 5.33 million vehicles. Sales of car-derived vans and light commercial vehicles, already heavily biased towards diesel, in 2000 reached a new record level of 1.56 million units, a volume rise of three percent.
France has the largest share of the West European diesel market, achieving almost 24 percent of total diesel car sales in 2001. It experienced a huge surge with sales increasing by 21 percent, reaching 1.27 million units and representing more than 56 percent market penetration.
Although losing ground to France, Germany remained the second largest market for diesel cars in 2001. Sales increased by 12.6 percent with market penetration rising to almost 35 percent. As with France, diesel sales in Germany exceeded one million units and the country remains Europe’s largest producer and exporter of diesel cars.
Since punitive anti-diesel tax measures were removed in 1995, diesel passenger car sales in Italy have been rising rapidly. 2001 was no exception with sales increasing by 9.2 percent and market penetration rising to almost 37 percent.
After nine years of dramatic growth in diesel sales, Spain showed a temporary decrease in sales in the early part of 2001, but an overall increase of 1.1 percent by the end of the year.
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By GlobalDataMarket penetration, which reached a high of 53.3 percent in 2000, still accounted for more than half (51.8 percent) of all car sales in 2001. The temporary decrease in diesel sales was due to the introduction by the Spanish government of a scrap incentive scheme, which provides purchase tax deduction on a new petrol powered car when scrapping an old petrol powered model.
In the UK, business car drivers trying to reduce CO2 levels in the run-up to the new emissions-based company car tax that started today, helped fuel last year’s rapid rise of diesel sales.
Sales increased substantially by 39 percent with market penetration also rising, to around 18 percent. Another contributing factor was the road tax changes for business and private vehicles registered after 1st March 2001. This tax is also graded according to a vehicle#;s CO2 emissions and therefore tends to be cheaper for diesel vehicles, despite a weighting applied specifically for the fuel.
Though the UK remains the only major vehicle market where diesel is more expensive than petrol, government regulations and consumer demands for better fuel economy suggest that there is potential for diesel sales to continue increasing. It#;s also worth noting that diesel penetration of the UK car market has previously been higher, peaking at 22.6 percent in 1994.
The Benelux countries of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg recorded a slight increase in total diesel car sales in 2001. A fall in demand in the Netherlands was offset by a sales increase of 6.3 percent in Belgium and Luxembourg; two countries that combined have the second highest diesel penetration of all the major markets at 62.3 percent.
Austria once again enjoyed the largest diesel penetration with 65.7 percent in 2001, a new record for the major European markets. Diesel sales in Austria are largely helped by the country’s vehicle purchase tax, which is linked to fuel economy, therefore giving diesel passenger cars a price advantage.