10 June 2025
As petrol and diesel registrations declined, did battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) spur Italian new-car market growth? Autovista24 web editor James Roberts looks at the figures from May.
May saw 139,484 registered in Italy, according to the latest data from ANFIA. This marked a 0.1% decline compared with 2024 and a unit difference of just 189. Despite a month of growth in March, May continued a wider pattern of stagnation.
Across the first five months of the year the country saw 722,704 new cars delivered. This was a drop of 0.5% year-on-year, amounting to 3,751 fewer units.
The Italian new-car market has proven fragile so far in 2025. Registrations remain below pre-pandemic levels, indicating an ongoing struggle with underlying vulnerabilities and external pressures. The market remained below 2024 heading into the second quarter.
In a market underpinned by significant structural shifts in powertrain preferences, diesel and petrol registrations continued their consistent contraction. This has acted as the primary drag on the overall market throughout the first quarter.
Conversely, the Italian market has witnessed strong BEV and PHEV growth. However, a relatively small market share is having little impact on overall registrations. Hybrids continued to emerge as the dominant powertrain as the year approaches the halfway point, driving combined electrified figures.
EV market not enough
Electric vehicles (EVs) claimed an 11.4% market share in Italy during May, up from 6.8% 12 months ago. However, registrations of new plug-ins amounted to 15,845, marking a 66.1% year-on-year increase.
This brought total EV registrations between January and May to 71,920 units, up 60.9% year on year. Despite the continued growth of EV registrations, the market share remained at just 10% in the year to date. This remains consistently below fellow major European new-car markets.
‘The European comparison sees Italy lagging far behind in the diffusion of electric vehicles, but positive signs are not lacking, and the growing availability of increasingly affordable models represents a possible turning point for the market,’ comments Motus-E president Fabio Pressi, emphasising the importance of activating the new bonuses for electric cars announced by the government very quickly.
The fortunes of EV sales in Italy expose the fragility of the Italian automotive landscape. Sales performance is sensitive to various factors, including incentive instability and low comparative base volumes from the previous year.
EV policy clarity urged
The influence of policy and incentives on EV uptake is a recurring theme across Europe, and Italy Is no outlier. In late December 2023, the Italian government announced the reintroduction of EV purchase incentives under the Ecobonus scheme. Regional incentives also complement national measures by offering additional financial support.
The Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security (MASE) recently announced new incentives for zero-emission vehicles. Key to this is the reallocation of approximately €600 million from the PNRR funds originally designated to EV charging infrastructure.
This initiative promotes the replacement of internal-combustion engine (ICE) vehicles with electric ones, targeting both private individuals and businesses. It will be seen whether this can help boost EV market share as the year progresses.
‘The announcement of new incentives for zero-emission vehicles provided by the MASE represents a positive and unexpected development for the market, which could give new momentum to the demand for BEVs, although subject to the conditions of scrapping old vehicles and belonging to two specific ISEE income brackets,’ stated Roberto Vavassori, president of ANFIA.
Digging deeper into the overall performance for May, BEV numbers totalled 7,118. With this 40.8% year-on-year increase, the powertrain’s market share rose by 1.5 percentage points (pp) compared with May 2024. This meant BEVs accounted for 5.1% of new-car registrations last month.
PHEVs enjoyed a delivery surge of 94.4% year-on-year, with 8,736 units registered. However, seemingly significant increases were tempered by a relatively limited 6.3% market share.
Hybrid market moment
The hybrid markets, including both full and mild, solidified their position as undisputed market leaders.
This powertrain has consistently captured nearly half of all new registrations in Italy since the third quarter of 2021. This indicates a sustained and deeply rooted consumer preference, serving as the primary gateway for electrification.
In May, 60,619 hybrids were registered in Italy. This underlined an 8.7% year-on-year increase, with a sizeable 43.5% share of the market. In the year to date, hybrids claimed a 44.3% market share, with 320,513 vehicles hitting Italian roads.
The popularity of hybrids ensured that electrified vehicles claimed a market share of 54.8%. This was up 8pp on May 2024. Over the first five months of 2025, electrified registrations accounted for 54.3% of deliveries. With 392,433 units registered, this equated to a 20.2% increase compared with the first five months of 2024.
Fossil fuel fall continues
Meanwhile, petrol and diesel vehicles have experienced a sustained and significant decline, acting as a major impediment to overall growth. New-car registration figures for May starkly confirmed this. The month saw another ICE decline of 22.3% year-on-year with 50,578 units.
Splitting the two ICE variants, petrol endured a 19.5% year-on-year decline, plus a continued decline in market share to 25.9%. Diesel registrations have seen an even more severe and prolonged fall. It has consistently been the worst-performing powertrain, suffering serious registration drops.
In May, diesel deliveries slumped by 28.6% with 14,383 units registered and a share of 10.3%. This picture is similar in the year-to-date. The fuel type endured a 31.7% fall compared with 2024, and a market share fall of 4.6pp to 10.2%.
Despite the ongoing tailspin, between January and May 2025, ICE occupied a 36.8% market share. This remained 26.8 pp above plug-in registrations. This affirms some of the complexities facing the Italian new-car landscape. While the EV growth is gradually offsetting the decline in ICE sales, general volumes are not sufficient to drive overall growth.
