Last year, new passenger cars emitted on average 119.6g/km, 8% below the official EU target set for 2015, although the average mass of new car sold remained broadly the same.

Diesel cars remain the most sold vehicles in the EU, constituting 52% of sales.

The research also found that the average fuel efficiency of petrol cars (122.6g/km) has been catching up with the fuel-efficiency of diesel cars (119.2g/km) in recent years.

Sales of plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles continued to increase. The relative share of plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicle sales was highest in the Netherlands and Denmark, reaching 12% and 8 % respectively of national car sales in 2015. However, sales of such vehicles still remain a small fraction of total sales, accounting for just 1.3 % of all new EU cars sold.

Around 57,000 pure battery-electric vehicles were registered in 2015, a 50% increase compared to 2014. The largest number of registrations were recorded in France (more than 17,650 vehicles), Germany (more than 12,350 vehicles) and the UK (more than 9,900 vehicles).