July Registrations: Austria Reports Strong Increase in Electric Vehicles

Austria saw 7,073 new electric cars registered in July — 44 percent more than in the same month last year. The overall passenger car market also continued to grow, with pure electric cars accounting for 27.4 percent of all new passenger car registrations in July. In other words, more than one in four new cars registered the previous month were electric vehicles.

In July, the overall passenger car market in this Alpine country rose by a moderate 3.8 percent to 25,823 new registrations. Pure electric vehicles saw the strongest growth within this mix, increasing by 43.8 percent to 7,073 units. This disproportionate increase results in a very high electric vehicle share of 27.4 percent for Austria. For comparison, electric vehicles account for 24.8 percent of registrations in Austria so far this year. The trend thus continues to rise.

In addition to the 7,073 new electric cars mentioned, 9,657 gasoline hybrids were sold in July (+11% year-on-year), accounting for 37.4% of the total market. There were also 1,065 diesel hybrids (-25% year-on-year; 4.1% market share). As usual, the report from Statistik Austria does not specify how the hybrid figures are distributed among mild hybrids, full hybrids, and plug-in hybrids. Certain hybrid variants are actually more similar to conventional internal combustion engines than to electric vehicles. Statistik Austria defines the term “alternative drives” quite broadly, which is something that should be kept in mind.

On the contrary, purely conventional gasoline-powered cars are losing ground. In July, there were 5,625 new registrations for gasoline vehicles (-16% year-on-year; 21.8% market share). Diesel cars saw only 2,403 new registrations (9.3% market share), which is 22% below the figure from July 2025. In summary, Austria’s new car market is dominated by gasoline hybrids, conventional gasoline vehicles, and electric cars. Diesel engines and diesel hybrids are facing a decline in significance.

Manuela Lenk, the director general for statistical affairs at Statistik Austria, describes the development in Austria’s car market as follows: “The automotive market in Austria continued to grow even in July 2026. Compared to July 2025, new car registrations increased by 3.8% to 25,823. In total, 190,352 new cars were put on the roads since the start of the year, which is 13.4% more than in the first 7 months of the previous year. Electric vehicles and hybrids saw particularly strong growth, each increasing by +30%, while fewer internal combustion engine cars were registered than a year earlier.” The +30% figure refers to the period since the start of the year.

Statistik Austria also provides a brand ranking for 2026: Among fully electric passenger cars, BMW leads slightly with a share of 10.5%, followed by Skoda (10.2%), BYD (9.7%), Tesla (9.1%), and VW (8.5%). The statistics show that there is currently no clear leader in Austria, as five brands are relatively close in performance. Together, they account for just under half of the market.