BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - New car registrations in the European Union rose sharply last year. Recently, however, the momentum has slowed noticeably. Compared to the high starting point a year ago, the number of newly registered cars in the EU fell by 3.3 percent to 867,052 in December, as the European industry association Acea announced in Brussels on Thursday. For the year as a whole, 10.5 million cars were registered, 13.9 percent more than a year earlier. In 2022, however, fewer cars were registered than at any time since 1993. One reason was the shortage of parts.

Battery electric cars overtook diesel vehicles in popularity among buyers in 2023, taking third place behind petrol cars and hybrid electric cars.

With the exception of Hungary, all EU markets grew overall last year. The three major markets of Italy (+18.9%), Spain (+16.7%) and France (+16.1%) recorded double-digit growth. In Germany, growth amounted to 7.3%. The weak development in December slowed things down.

With 1.15 million cars, Volkswagen's core brand VW Passenger Cars remained the market leader in the EU. With around 2.75 million cars, the VW Group as a whole was also ahead of the Peugeot, Fiat and Opel parent company Stellantis (1.88 million cars). As in the previous year, the Renault Group was in third place with 1.15 million cars. BMW registered 722,767 new cars across all brands, Mercedes-Benz 597,525 and the US car manufacturer Tesla 279,042./jha/jsl/he