Diesel and petrol cars will be soon off the road?

For the first time, internal combustion engine car sales are dropped off in the three main world markets: China, Europe and the USA.

On the other hand, this trend is balanced by the greater sales of electric cars.

For example in China, the main cars market, it has been recorded the first decline of fossil-fuel transport sales since 1992, with a significant drop of about 5%, partly offset by an increase in electric vehicle sale, accounting from 600,000, in 2017 to 1.1 million in 2018. In addition, it is expected that electric car sales will double in 2019, reaching 2 million.

Whereas in the EU, the second world cars market, the slight increase in total sales (from 17.68 to 17.75 million vehicles) is lower compare with electric cars market, that account from 307,000, in 2017, to 408,000 units in 2018. This trend confirms the decline of fossil-fuel car sales within Europe. In the old continent, in fact, it is expected that sales of electric cars will reach about 600,000 units in 2019, while those of diesel and petrol cars will continue to decline.

In the USA, the essentially stable situation regarding the car market is partly due to the decline of fossil-fuel car sales and, on the other, to the almost doubling sales of electric cars, which account from 200,000 to 360,000 in only a year.

Many analysts believe that 2017 has represented the peak in world fossil-fuel car sales, that are now destined to an inexorable decline.

The hope is that this trend may be the prelude to the even more important one of global CO₂ emissions reduction.