Stats also show the average age of cars on Swiss roads is getting older, with vintages (pre-1980) especially popular.
Keystone / Urs Flueeler
The number of new cars registered in the country fell by 8% in 2022. Supply chain issues linked to the war in Ukraine are presumed to be the major cause.
A total of 322,387 vehicles were registered last year, down more than 20% on pre-pandemic numbers, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) wrote on Tuesday.
The knock-on effects of the war in Ukraine – an important supplier of cable harnesses – were the big driver of the market shrinkage, the office said.
Fully electric cars managed to buck the trend, continuing their relative growth to make up 17.7% of the market; rechargeable hybrid cars made up 7.8%. Together, the 25.4% share they represent is only about half of what Swiss authorities aim to reach by 2025.
Petrol cars are still the most popular new car at 37.6%, with non-rechargeable hybrids at 25.3%. Diesels fell back by two percentage points to 11.6%.
New motorbikes also dwindled in 2022 to 48,799, a fall of 13.6%.
As of December 2022, almost 6.4 million motor vehicles were registered in Switzerland, a country with a population of over 8.7 million.
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
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