Japanese firm leads Czech hybrid market

The number of cars with a hybrid drive sold in Czechia increased by almost 41% to 25,987 in the first eight months of the year, according to current data from the Czech Association of Automobile Importers. Of these, plug-in hybrids sales grew by 69%, to 3,566 cars, while sales of electric cars rose by 58%, to 4,047 vehicles.

The best-selling hybrid brand is Toyota with 6,038 cars, the second is BMW with 2,845 cars sold and the third is Ford, which sold 2,499 hybrids. In fourth place is the domestic Skoda Auto, whose Octavia was the best-selling hybrid model.

Hybrids still oustrip electric

Total registrations of cars with an alternative drive, which includes petrol-powered vehicles in addition to battery cars, rose by 32% compared to last year to 32,267 cars and already make up 21.5% of all passenger cars sold.

Electric cars have a share of 2% to hybrids’ 17.3%. Only 12 hydrogen-powered cars were also sold in Czechia this year, 10 of which belong to Toyota and 2 to Hyundai.

CEO – new models driving plug-in market

Martin Peleska, CEO of the Toyota and Lexus CR brands, said “the fastest growing category of alternative drive cars this year are plug-in hybrids, which saw a decline last year. One of the reasons is the further expansion of the manufacturers’ offer with new models. The market for low-emission cars is still dominated by the popular technology of full hybrids without the need to recharge from an outlet.”

Of pure electric cars, Tesla was the best-selling brand until August with 1,034 cars, followed by Skoda with 755 electric cars and Volkswagen with 438 ID series cars sold.

The best-selling model was the Skoda Enyaq. Sales of new passenger cars in Czechia increased by 16.6% to 150,356 vehicles from the beginning of January to the end of August this year. In August alone, registrations increased by almost 13%, to 18,718 cars.