European new car registrations rose 9.0% to 1.34 million cars in April, marking the best performance for the month since 2008.

The EU new car market saw its best April performance since 2008 and the highest monthly increase over the last 13 months

The increase, revealed in figures from Jato Dynamics, follows the 5.2% decline posted in March, and marks the highest monthly rise since March 2017, boosting the year-to-date figures to 5,607,856 registrations – an increase of 2.5% year on year.

Highlights included a return to growth in the UK, with registrations in April up by 10.4%; the highest monthly increase since June 2015. However, this was due to two additional selling days and the after-effects of the VED tax changes from 2017. Overall, Switzerland was the only market to register a decline.

However, diesel registrations across the EU continued to fall in April, with volume down by 13.2% to 453,500 units – a market share of 36.7%. In contrast, petrol registrations were up by 53.5% to 692,300 units – a market share of 56.1%. Alternatively fuelled vehicles continued to record growth, with volume also up by 53.5% as they counted for 5.5% of total registrations. Among them there were 41,200 hybrid, 13,500 plug-in and 13,000 fully-electric registrations.