The Decline of Diesel: Exploring the Rise of Electric and Hybrid Cars in Belgium

2023-09-12 15:17:54

5 years ago, diesel vehicles represented almost 50% of cars delivered. Today, “theCustomers have become accustomed to no longer necessarily having diesel. There is so much talk regarding electrification, so much hybridization, that customers tend to come looking for this type of engine.“, explains Jean-Benoît De Castillo, director of a car dealership in Wavre.

According to figures from the automotive sector, only one in ten new vehicles sold runs on diesel in 2023, or 30,000 since the start of the year. This is the consequence of different factors such as fuel costs at the pump, pollution standards, the appearance of alternatives such as hybrid or electric technology, “but also Dieselgate in 2015 which brought a blow to the image of diesel“, adds Christophe Dubon, spokesperson for Febiac, the Belgian federation of the automobile and cycle industry. “All these elements taken together explain why today we hardly sell diesel cars to individuals.“, he continues.

For Laurent Loyet, boss of several dealerships, the relentless focus on thermal engines that run on diesel is not entirely justified. “If we look at the consumption performance and CO2 emissions which have really become very low in diesel, it still remains a very, very good product. This offers very broad autonomy. We have vehicles that can range up to 1000 kilometers on a full tank of diesel.“.

Very few individuals still opt for this type of engine, since three quarters of the diesel vehicles sold this year in Belgium are leasing for businesses.

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