Swiss automobile landscape gradually embracing electrification
(12.07.2023) Electric vehicles are making significant strides in Switzerland. According to the Swiss automobile importers association, in 2022, over a quarter (26.1%) of newly registered passenger cars in the country were equipped with electric or plug-in hybrid engines.
This represents a 3.6 percentage point increase compared to 2021 (22.5%). With a consumption of 120.9 grams of CO2 per kilometer, electric or plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles – commonly known as "plug-in vehicles" – saw a 6.9% decrease in average CO2 emissions per kilometer compared to last year.
On the other hand, the performance of light commercial vehicles in this regard remained modest. With 201.5 grams/km per vehicle in 2022, the average emissions far exceed the target value of 186 grams/km set for this vehicle category.
According to auto-suisse, the market for alternative propulsion vehicles (other than purely thermal engines) is struggling to take off. Between January and May 2023, the share of purely electric passenger vehicles in the new vehicle market reached 18.2%, only 0.4 percentage points higher than the overall figure of the previous year (17.8%). The same trend applies to vehicles equipped with plug-in hybrid engines (8.5% between January and May 2023, compared to 8.1% in 2022).
Through its president, Andreas Burgener, the association of automobile importers calls on the authorities to "remove obstacles to electric mobility instead of creating new ones," including "waiving the 4% vehicle tax on electric vehicles."
Furthermore, auto-suisse notes that the deployment of charging infrastructure lags behind, in a context where rising electricity prices and uncertainties about the future of supply could hinder the growth of alternative mobility.