Electric and electrified cars were the big 2020 winners, gaining despite a 3.78-million-unit decline in overall European sales compared with 2019 because of factory and dealership shutdowns caused by the pandemic.
The introduction of new emissions regulations that punished automakers that failed to reach an agreed CO2 target promoted sales of plug-in vehicles.
This combined with generous, green-angled incentives in countries such as Germany and France aimed at kick-starting sales after the first lockdown helped increase the volume for full-electric cars by 106 percent to 733,109 units, according to data from market researcher JATO Dynamics (click below, left, to download the 3-page PDF with results for all the segments).