The sales of electric and hybrid cars in Romania reached 403 units in the first quarter of the year, up 207% year-on-year, reports local Profit.ro.

By comparison, only 131 eco cars were registered in the first three months of 2016.

However, only 11 electric cars were sold between January and March this year. The rest were hybrid cars.

In the European Union, the sales of alternative fuel vehicles (AFV) rose by 37.6% in the first quarter compared to the same period last year. The trend in the EU is to rapidly replace the car fleet with environmentally friendly vehicles.

Almost 213,000 alternative fuel vehicles were registered in the EU during this period. The sales of cars with electric charge rose by 30% year-on-year to almost 47,200 units in the first three months of the year. The hybrid vehicles registrations went up by 61.2% year-on-year to over 111,000 units.

The highest increases on the eco car segment were recorded in the five large automotive markets in Europe, namely Spain (87.4%), Germany (67.5%), Great Britain (29.9%), France (24.8%), and Italy (17.2%).

editor@romania-insider.com