In 2017, in 13 EU Member States, including Romania, more than half of the cars were equipped with petrol engines, according to Eurostat data published on Thursday.

The highest share of cars equipped with petrol engines was in Cyprus (84%), Finland (74%), Denmark (69%), followed by Hungary, Malta, Germany and Romania, where according to 2015 data, there were 5.155 million cars out of which 3.242 million (62.8%) were equipped with petrol engines and 1.906 million with diesel engines, according to Agerpres.

In contrast, the share of cars equipped with diesel engines was higher than 50% in France (68%), Lithuania (67%), Luxembourg (62%), Belgium (58%), Spain and Austria (both 57%), Latvia and Portugal (both 56%) and Ireland (53%).

The use of alternative fuels such as electricity, natural gas, biofuels and others is highest in Poland (15%), Lithuania (9%), Italy and Latvia (both 8%). At this point, Romania is at the bottom of the ranking, as in 2015, there were only 7,000 cars using alternative fuels – less than 1% of the 5.155 million cars.