European natural gas vehicle market continues to grow despite economic crisis

Furthermore, current encouraging political messages on key topics such as infrastructure funding in connection with positive market signals like gas-oil price decoupling and the growing push from vehicle manufacturers bringing new models to the market, do nothing but support the idea of a great future for the NGV industry.

There was a relevant growth experienced by the number of LNG and LCNG stations, now reaching 44 within the European Union plus some other 43 under construction. Talking on a pan-European basis and thanks to markets not as heavily affected by the crisis as for the EU ones, the growth of the NGV fleet gains in importance as the market jumped by 26%, peaking at 1,73 million NG/biomethane powered vehicles as per mid 2012.

Thanks to the collaboration with the GVR, NGVA Europe also provides statistical figures from outside Europe. In this sense, the worldwide number of NGVs grew by 21% during the same period of time, reaching a total number of 16,2 million vehicles. Thus the list of top-ten countries is led by Pakistan with some 3,1 million vehicles and followed by Iran (2,9 million), Argentina (2,12 million), Brazil (1,72 million), India (1,5 million), China (1,2 million), Italy (0,75 million), Ukraine (0,39 million), Colombia (0,38 million) and Thailand (0,33 million).

Source: NGVA Europe.