ACEA has produced it 2023 edition of ‘Vehicles in use’ report which provides an overview of the motor vehicle fleet on the road in the European Union. 

This 2023 edition covers the 27 member states of the European Union, plus the EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland), as well as the United Kingdom.

The report is based on 2021 stats and finds the EU passenger car fleet grew by 1.2% compared to 2020, with nearly 250 million cars on the road in total. With the exception of Slovenia (-4.1%), all EU countries expanded their car fleet, with the highest growth seen in Slovakia (+8.2%). 

29.5 million vans are in circulation throughout the European Union, half of which can be found in three countries: France (6.3 million vans), Italy (4.3 million) and Spain (3.9 million). There are more than 6.4 million medium and heavy commercial vehicles on EU roads, up 3.2% compared to 2020. With more than 1.2 million trucks, Poland has the largest truck fleet. 

EU cars are now on average 12 years old. Greece and Estonia have the oldest car fleets, with vehicles 17 years old. The newest cars can be found in Luxembourg (7.6 years) Ireland’s average age was 8.8 years, compared with a UK figure of 10 years. 

Despite the strong increase in sales seen in recent years, electrically-chargeable cars (battery electric and plug-in hybrid) still make up only 1.5% of the total EU car fleet. In the EU, only three countries have a share of battery electric cars higher than 2%, with Norway far ahead on 16%. Overall in the EU petrol accounts for 51% of cars and Diesel 42%. 

The report finds that the European Union has an average of 567 passenger cars and 83 commercial vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants. Luxembourg has the highest car density in the EU (698 per 1,000 people), while in Latvia, nearly 43% of all households do not own a car. 32% of French families have two passenger cars. Ireland has an average of 453 passenger cars and 92 commercial vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants. 

The 2023 edition of ACEA’s ‘Vehicles in use’ report provides an extensive overview of the motor vehicle fleet on the road in the European Union and can be downloaded here.