New vehicle registrations in Romania advance 40.6pct in March 2022

As many as 10,902 new vehicles were registered in Romania in March, up 40.6% from 7,753 registered in the same month in 2021, according to the Association of Manufacturers and Importers of Automobiles (APIA).

After a significant development in the first two months, March 2022 witnessed a 34.9% increase in vehicle registrations y-o-y, after four months of decrease in late 2021.

On the local market, the top 10 brand chart, plus commercial vehicles, three months into 2022 is opened by Dacia (7,544 units), followed by Ford (2,811 units), Hyundai (2,667 units), Volkswagen (2,182 units), Toyota ( 2,157 units), Renault (2,110 units), Skoda (2,001 units), Mercedes Benz (1,891 units), Peugeot (1,092 units) and Fiat (895 units).

In terms of market share, the SUV segment is in first place, with a share of 46.2%, up 1% from 2021, followed by Class C, with a share of 23.7%, down 3%, and Class B, with a share of 17.4%, down 0.5%, all y-o-y.

"By the type of fuel of the registered vehicles in the first three months of 2021, the gasoline engines recorded an increase of 49.5% from the similar period of 2021 to a share of 65.5%. As for the vehicles equipped with diesel engines, they posted a decrease of 18.7% as against the first three months of 2021 to a share of 15.4% of the total," according to APIA.

Three months into 2022, electrified vehicles, namely electric vehicles (full and plug-in hybrids), as well as full hybrid vehicles (working on an electric drive without charging from an external source) captured a market share of 19.1%, which exceeds the share of diesel engines by 1,066 units, Agerpres.ro informs.

So far in 2022, purchases of green vehicles have doubled (+119.5%) as against the same period last year. There was a surge in purchases of full electric vehicles (+ 409.2%) and plug-in hybrids (+ 166.9%).

"Moreover, it is worth noting in the first three months of 2022 the developments at the top of the ranking where the top 5 best-selling full electric vehicles are the Dacia Spring, 952 units, released in 2021; the Tesla Model 3, 154 unit , an 18-fold increase over the same period last year; the Hyundai Kona 146 units, up 595.2%; the Volkswagen e-UP! 79 units, down -1.3%, and the Volkswagen ID3, 76 units, up 145.2% ", it is also specified in the release.