Year-on-year diesel sales volume in July was down by a modest 23k units according to our figures – a better result for diesel than seen in June when a 50k loss was experienced.
To date in 2025, the decline in diesel car sales volume is 226k units, with a YTD diesel share of new car sales standing at 11.6% to July – just over three percentage points lower than the January to July 2024 figure. Year-to-date, Austria followed by Ireland and Germany have seen the largest percentage drops in diesel demand, but the downward trend remains relatively gentle as there is considerable consumer caution in many European markets over switching to BEV, meaning the ICE segment in general is only decaying slowly.
The chart below shows just how resilient Germany’s diesel car market is compared with most others in the region. Its share of overall diesel cars sales was a steady 20% until the full impact of “Dieselgate” - the story of which broke in 2015 - hit the diesel market from 2017/18.
While many markets started to turn their backs on diesel quite quickly after this point, its importance to both German OEMs and to German car buyers resulted in Germany’s share doubling within five years. That trend has continued to the present day and German car buyers now account for nearly 50% of all diesel car sales in the region.
This article was first published on GlobalData’s dedicated research platform, the Automotive Intelligence Center.
