According to provisional data from the European Environment Agency (EEA), new car emissions last year averaged 127g/km, significantly below the 2015 target of 130g. However, manufacturers will have to keep reducing emissions levels to meet the target of 95g CO2/km by 2021.

‘The average car sold last year was almost 10% more efficient than the average car sold in 2010, when monitoring started,’ EEA executive director Hans Bruyninckx said. ‘This is good news. But passenger transport still generates a significant part of total greenhouse gas emissions of the EU, so we need to think about more sustainable transport systems – the car cannot solve all our problems in the 21st century.’

Sustainable transport group, Transport & Environment (T&E), welcomed the progress made by car manufacturers in reducing CO2 emissions but highlighted the significant gap between real-world CO2 emissions figures and test results.

Recent research shows that average fuel-efficiency figures achieved by drivers on the road are around 25% higher than official figures claimed by carmakers, with the European Commission planning to introduce the World Light Duty Test Procedure (WLTP) test cycle in 2017.

Greg Archer, clean vehicles manager at T&E, said: ‘Fuel efficiency standards for vehicles are Europe’s single most effective policy to drive down CO2 emissions, but are being undermined by an obsolete test. The test procedures are a Swiss cheese, full of loopholes, that carmakers exploit to exaggerate improvements in fuel economy and emissions.’

The EEA figures also showed that new cars have become more efficient despite an increase in the average mass. This has been led by technological improvements and higher sales of diesel cars, although the organisation added that the preference for diesel seems to be falling, making up just over half the cars sold in 2013.

It also said that the efficiency gap between new petrol and diesel vehicles has been decreasing in recent years. Compared to the current levels the average emissions gap between petrol and diesel was more than 10 times higher in 2000.

Electric vehicles saw a sharp rise, with 24,000 vehicles registered in 2013; a 71% increase on 2012 numbers though still a small number in actual figures. Around 31,000 plug-in hybrid cars were registered in 2013.

On average, the most efficient cars were bought in the Netherlands (109g CO2/km), Greece (111g) and Portugal (112g) while the country selling the least efficient cars was Latvia (147g) followed by Estonia (147g) and Bulgaria (142g). The biggest cars, measured by mass, were bought in Latvia, Sweden and Luxembourg. People in Malta, Denmark and Greece bought the lightest models on average.

The EEA added that there seem to be two distinct markets in Europe, with older EU Member States buying significantly more efficient models compared to newer members.