There are almost 400,000 cars on Malta’s roads, with 12,200 added in the last three months of last year, the National Statistics Office said on Friday.

The NSO said that the stock of licensed motor vehicles at the end of 2019 stood at 397,508, with a 3.2 per cent increase in the last three months when compared to the same three months in 2018.

It said 307,130 were passenger cars, 54,400 commercial vehicles, 30,375 motorcycles and e-scooters, 450 route buses, 396 private coaches and 2,191 agricultural vehicles.

During the quarter under review, the stock of licensed motor vehicles increased at a net average rate of 28 vehicles per day. Newly licensed vehicles placed on the road during the period under review amounted to 6,154. The majority of the newly licensed vehicles, 4,167 or 67.7 per cent of the total, were passenger cars, followed by motorcycles with 996 or 16.2 per cent.

Newly licensed ‘new’ motor vehicles amounted to 2,519 or 40.9 per cent of the total, whereas newly licensed ‘used’ motor vehicles totalled 3,635 or 59.1 per cent.

An average of 67 vehicles per day were newly licensed during the quarter under review while 6,941 vehicles were taken off the road due to a restriction. 35 per cent of these were garaged, 34.2 per cent were put up for resale while 28.8 per cent were scrapped.

Vehicles that had their restriction ending during the quarter under review totalled 3,401. The majority were recorded as being resold or garaged.

As at the end of December 2019, 236,892 vehicles or 59.6 per cent of the total had petrol-powered engines while 154,459 were diesel-powered. Electric and hybrid vehicles accounted for 1.1 per cent of the entire stock, with a total of 4,493 vehicles.

When compared to the same period of 2018, electric cars increased by 147.6 per cent to 2,293. There were 2,144 hybrid petrol cars and 56 hybrid diesel vehicles. 75 vehicles ran on LPG and 1,556 ran on combined petrol and LPG.