Only 1.8 percent of all cars in Europe run on electricity. Even when you include hybrids, the percentage is below 4.
Electric cars currently make up only a tiny fraction of the total car fleet in Europe. In fact, the latest figures show that just 1.8 percent of all cars in Europe are electric.
The figure paints a picture of the challenge car brands face if regulators force them to sell only electric cars. And that's what it looks like right now. At least the EU refuses to withdraw the ban on the combustion engine from 2035.
Although it will still be permissible to drive your existing petrol car after 2035, there are many indications that the transition to electric cars will take a long time. Even longer than the EU expects and requires.
Maybe even decades. There are many who doubt that it is even realistic to achieve a complete transition. That drivers only drive on electricity.
In 2023, there were almost 249 million cars on the roads in the EU. Of these, only 1.8 percent were pure electric cars.
If plug-in hybrids are included, the share rose to 3.9 percent. This shows that even with various incentives and benefits, electric cars and hybrids have not convinced drivers that they are worth spending money on.
Figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, ACEA , also show that there is still some way to go before electric cars can compete with both gasoline and diesel cars.
Despite various initiatives by governments, electric cars still only make up a small portion of the total number of registered cars in Europe.
The rising prices of new cars are probably contributing to many Europeans keeping their older cars for longer. A logical consequence of this is that less money is being spent on fewer new cars. That is, across the board.
On average, cars on European roads are 12.5 years old. In Greece, the average age is 17.5 years, while in Luxembourg it is 8 years.
ACEA estimates that there were 248,824,542 cars in the EU in 2023, an increase of 1.4 percent from the previous year. Including the countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the UK, which has left the EU, there were 294,480,894 vehicles on European roads in 2023.
This also represents an increase of 1.4 percent.
Italy has the highest number of cars with 694 cars per 1,000 inhabitants, while Latvia has the lowest number, 381 cars per 1,000 inhabitants. The average European drives approximately 12,346 kilometers per year.
In 2024, the market share of pure electric cars in the EU was 13.6 percent, a decrease of 1 percent from the previous year.
But plug-in hybrids have also lost some of the appeal of the car type, so the market share has now shrunk from 7.7 to 7.1 percent.
In the wider EU+EFTA+England region, the share of electric cars fell from 15.7 percent to 15.4 percent, while plug-in hybrids fell from 7.7 percent to 7.3 percent.
Car manufacturers are already struggling to comply with the stricter emissions requirements that have been introduced. They risk large fines if they exceed the limits that came into effect this year.
At Volkswagen, management has already warned that it will probably have to hand over one and a half billion euros in clean bills to the EU due to the stricter emissions requirements.
Nissan also wants to change the rules. In England, the car brand has already threatened to close a number of factories and thus thousands of jobs, because the government insists that 24 percent of all new cars this year must only run on electricity.
This percentage will be raised to 100 percent by 2030. Here in Denmark, petrol and diesel cars will have a slightly longer lease because we are still part of the EU.
