Polluted air, Albania and Kosovo have more diesel cars than in all of Europe

If you walk on the street, it is no wonder that you are suffocated by the black smoke emitted by the cars, or constantly inhale the polluted air coming from the vehicles.

The quality of the vehicle, the old age of the cars and the high use of diesel vehicles, which release more carbon dioxide, are the main reasons for poor air quality.

Eurostat's comparative data shows that Albania and Kosovo have the highest share of diesel vehicles in Europe, with about 74% of the total in Albania and about 82% in Kosovo for 2022.

Out of about 639 vehicles in total in the country in 2022, about 471 thousand are diesel. About 17% of vehicles (108 thousand) fell with gasoline and 59 thousand with alternative energy, or 9.3%. Electric cars in 2022 in the country had less than 1300, according to Eurostat data.

Other Western European countries have a much higher share of gasoline cars and are increasing the use of alternative energy. For example, the Netherlands has less than 10% of diesel cars, while Turkey holds the record for alternative energy vehicles with around 30% of the total.

According to Eurostat, In 12 of the 23 EU member states for 2022, there were more petrol cars than diesel cars, with the proportion of petrol cars ranging from 85% in the Netherlands to 47% in Italy (Figure 4) .

In the other 11 member states, diesel cars outnumbered petrol cars with their share ranging from 67% in Lithuania to 50% in Romania and Slovenia.
Despite efforts across Europe to increase the share of cars with low CO2 emissions, the share of passenger cars powered by alternative fuels remained low in 2022 in most member states.

In 3 of the 23 Member States for which information is available, passenger cars using alternative energy represented less than 1% of the total passenger car fleet. The EU member state with the highest percentage is Italy, where alternative fuel passenger cars reached 10% in 2022.

Other countries with notable percentages of passenger cars using alternative fuels are Norway (20.1%), Sweden (8.3%), Lithuania (7.1%) and Latvia (5.7%).

Among the candidate countries and potential candidates, the highest percentage of alternative fuel passenger cars was registered in Turkey (35.4%), Georgia (32.7%) and Moldova (16.8%).
In Norway almost all (99.9%) of alternative fuel passenger cars are battery electric cars, while in Turkey and Moldova the share of gas cars is predominant among alternative fuel passenger cars.

Few cars in relation to the population

In relation to the population, Albania is among the countries with the fewest vehicles in Europe.

According to Eurstat, in 2022, Albania had 226 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants, which places us in third place with the lowest rate for this indicator, leaving behind only Kosovo (182 vehicles for 2021) and Turkey (169). .

In the region, residents of Montenegro have the highest number of vehicles (369), followed by those of Serbia (344).

Albanians have less than half of the vehicles compared to the European Union average of 560 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants./ Monitor