Car market, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Transport

During the year 25,613 new cars were sold and 23,634 used cars imported into Estonia, the AMTEL association of car dealers and service companies said.

In the segment of trucks, new unit sales have surpassed the sale of used vehicles since 2013 and the difference between the two keeps widening.

There are 725,944 cars registered in the Estonian motor vehicle register now, the registration of over 120,000 of which has been suspended. Hence approximately 600,000 cars are moving on our roads at this point. The number of trucks in the register is approximately 115,000 and of buses 5,000.

Estonia ranks above the European average for the number of cars per 1,000 residents, being in 6th place for that indicator in the EU. For the average size of the car fleet, 15.1 years, it ranks fifth from the bottom. The average age of the EU car fleet is 10.7 years.

"When it comes to cars, we are one of the wasteyards of the European Union, so to speak. Old cars don't go on anywhere from here. Fortunately the clear trend we have is that the import of old cars is decreasing and people rather prefer to buy a car on the domestic market. A vehicle history traceable at least to some degree has clearly become an asset. There's still a long way to go to a rejuvenation of the car fleet," AMTEL manager Arno Sillat said.

Cars with 2005-2009 as the year of manufacture make up the biggest age segment in Estonia, numbering 160,000. The next biggest segments are cars manufactured between 2000 and 2004, which number 129,000, and cars manufactured between 2010-2014, numbering approximately 106,000.

Cars manufactured in the past three years number approximately 64,000.

The average year of manufacture of the cars in the Estonian register is 2002, and 2005 when cars with suspended registration are left aside.

As at Jan. 1 this year, cars with a gasoline engine accounted for 60.3% and cars with a diesel engine for 37.8% of the Estonian car fleet. Cars with a hybrid engine, cars using natural gas as fuel and electric cars make up 1.8% of the fleet in the following breakdown: gas powered cars 1%, hybrid cars 0.6%, and electric cars 0.2%.