Another European "success story": Eight Italians bought an electric car in February

Europeans give thumbs down to these.

In spite of all the environmental hype and subsidies, European car buyers continue to give the thumbs down to electric cars and hybrids. These are the latest sales figures from February:

• 8 Italians (out of a population of 60 million) bought an electric car in February.
• 0 Not one electric car was sold in Greece 
• 505 electric cars were sold in Germany (population 82 million)
• 648 electric cars were bought in France (population 65,6 million)

The market share for electric cars and hybrids in western Europe is a whopping 0,25%!

With this kind of sales, the German government's goal of having one million will of course never be reached. German car manufacturers are now crying for more subsidies:

“To support the development of alternative engines, we need positive conditions,” Zetsche, who is also the head of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), told business daily Handelsblatt. “At the same time it’s necessary to build the appropriate infrastructure.”Establishing new technology is unavoidably expensive, a cycle “we can only break if Europe supports the purchase of electric autos for a limited time,” he told the paper, adding that unified rules for the region would be ideal.