Car dealer federation Fedamo published an interim report on the car sales period on Monday. Without citing figures, it wrote that among sales made since the start of the festival, traditional thermic engine vehicles remained popular, particularly petrol vehicles.

Fedamo also observed that the process of purchasing an electric vehicle was lengthier than for thermic engines because “the customer has to inform himself and make the necessary investments for the charging infrastructure.”

Luxembourg’s government has said it wants half of the park of vehicles powered by electric or other alternative fuels by 2030. It remains far from its goal--in 2018, electric, hybrid and hybrid plug-in vehicles made up 1.5% of the country’s private vehicle stock.

In 2019, the Luxembourg government introduced a €5,000 bonus for purchasers of new zero-emissions electric cars and €2,500 on electric hybrid and plug-in vehicles whose emissions do not exceed 50g CO2/km. The scheme was extended to 2020.

“The continuation of premiums for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles has been welcomed by the industry and customers,” Fedamo wrote on Monday.

During the annual Autofestival, Luxembourg dealerships offer advantageous rates on the purchase of new cars. According to Fedamo, 30% of the annual sales contracts are signed during this period. Fedamo said that the festival conditions will be extended to 29 February 2020--likely a response to the implementation of the new WLTP standard to replace the previous NEDC emissions measure.

This new standard will increase the cost of vehicle tax on new vehicles registered after 1 March 2020. The amount depends on the emissions bracket in which the vehicle’s engine falls.