Sales of new hydrogen fuel cell cars have increased by 700 percent in 11 months. Twelve of the 16 new hydrogen cars were Toyota-branded. Four hydrogen filling stations are operating in the Czech Republic, but according to the Ministry of Transport, more are planned. Czechs are also increasingly interested in hybrid cars.

Sales of hydrogen vehicles have increased sharply in 2023, yet the total number of vehicles - 36 - is still low, mainly due to a lack of hydrogen filling stations. There are four in total in the Czech Republic. At the opening of the last one, which ČEPRO placed in a warehouse in the village of Mstětice near Prague, Transport Minister Martin Kupka said that more stations would soon be built. "Under the Operational Programme Transport 3, we have newly supported the construction of six more hydrogen stations, which will be built in the coming period in Prague, Ostrava, Brno and Napajedle."

Last year, three new hydrogen-powered vehicles had been sold by the end of the year, and this year, according to data from the Association of Automobile Importers, 16 had been sold by the end of November. In the same period last year, two hydrogen cars were sold, an increase of a staggering 700 percent. In total, there are 27 of them in the Czech Republic, driven by Hyundai and Toyota.

Ecology is no stranger to the Czechs
Sales of new passenger cars with hybrid drive increased by 45 percent to 37,233 vehicles in the first 11 months of the year. Of these, 5,192 cars were plug-in hybrids, whose sales increased by 63 percent. Sales of electric vehicles rose 70 percent to 6,128 vehicles.

Toyota was the best-selling hybrid brand with 9,131 vehicles, BMW came second with 3,895 hybrid sales and Skoda was third with 3,433 sales, pushing Ford into fourth position with 3,272 sales. Skoda also leads the plug-in hybrid category with 994 vehicles.

Among electric cars, the US Tesla is the best-selling car with 1,468 units thanks to price cuts, followed by Skoda with 1,372 sales of the Enyaq and Volkswagen in third with 580 EVs. Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz are next.

"The share of sales of electrified cars from January to November exceeded 21 percent. Hybrids are still the majority with 18 percent of the market. However, we expect the share of electric cars to grow further next year with the newly announced state support," said Martin Peleška, director of Toyota and Lexus CR. The state recently announced a subsidy call for companies to buy electric and hydrogen cars with a total volume of CZK 1.95 billion.

In the Czech Republic, 206,297 new passenger cars were sold from January to the end of November, a year-on-year increase of 16.2 percent.

Source: ČTK, Toyota