Some 66,017 new passenger cars were registered in Austria in the first quarter the year, a 4.4% increase on the corresponding period a year earlier, new data from Statistics Austria has found.
A total of 85,462 new motor vehicles were registered, which represented a 2.5% decline.
Month by month
“The Austrian new car market made a rapid start to the new year in January, declined in February and did not get off the ground in March compared to the previous year,” Tobias Thomas, Statistics Austria director general, commented.
“Nevertheless, the bottom line is that new car registrations in the first quarter of 2025 were 4.4% higher than in the first three months of the previous year. Cars with alternative drive systems are increasingly putting the brakes on traditional combustion engines.”
Electric and hybrid vehicles
Cars with ‘alternative drive’ systems, such as electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, accounted for 57.4% of all new car registrations, the data showed, a 26.1% increase, year-on-year.
EV registrations were up by close to a third (31.2%) to 14,177, while petrol hybrids grew by 26.8% to 20,049. Diesel hybrids also saw moderate growth, of 6.8%, however diesel car registrations dropped significantly, declining by a third (32.7%) to 8,544. Petrol car registrations also declined, by 4.5%.
According to Statistics Austria, cars with conventional internal combustion engines now make up just 42.6% of the market.
The most popular car brands registered between January and March 2025 included VW (14.3%), Škoda (10.5%), BMW (7.4%), Audi (7.3%), and Seat (4.9%). Brands like Cupra (+100.4%), Renault (+43.2%), Audi (+22.8%) all reported strong year-on-year growth, while Seat (−21.4%), Toyota (−13.8%) and Mercedes (−5.7%) experienced declines.
Commercial vehicle registrations also declined, particularly for light lorries (−17.4%) and heavy lorries (−19.9%). Agricultural tractor registrations fell by 10.3%.
Elsewhere, motorcycle registrations fell by 23.2%, while moped registrations were down 41.0% in the period. Read more here.
