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Further progress in the uptake of electric cars and vans was made in all 27 EU Member States in 2023. Electric vehicles accounted for 22.7% of new car registrations and 7.7% of new van registrations. In total, 2.4 million new electric cars were registered in 2023, up from 2 million in 2022. Registrations of new battery electric cars grew by 37%, while the number of newly registered plug-in hybrid cars fell by almost 4%. In 2023, a total of 91,000 new electric vans were registered, most of which were battery electric.
Figure 1. New registration of electric cars, EU-27
The transport sector is among the largest contributors to EU greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This means making reductions in transport emissions is vital to reaching the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality objective.
To strengthen CO2 emission reductions from the fleet of vehicles on Europe's roads, EU-wide targets require a 15% emission reduction by 2025 from new cars and vans. This target becomes more stringent with a 2030 target to reduce new car emissions by 55% and new van emissions by 50%, all relative to a 2021 baseline.
By 2035, a zero-CO2 emission target for the new cars and vans fleet corresponds to a 100% reduction. To reach these goals, a significant increase in the uptake of zero-emission vehicles will be needed.
Electric cars, which include battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), are penetrating the EU market. A steady increase in the number of new electric car registrations in Europe was observed until 2019, with growth from 600 new electric cars registered in 2010 to 400,000 in 2019. This was followed by a rapid increase in registrations of electric cars between 2020 and 2023. In 2023, electric vehicles accounted for almost 23% of newly registered passenger cars. BEVs accounted for 15%, while PHEVs 8% of total new car registrations.
In 2023, the average mass of battery electric cars was 1,880kg, while PHEVs were slightly heavier, with an average mass of around 1,958kg. According to the provisional 2023 data, the average electric energy consumption (measured at type-approval) of these vehicles was roughly 167 and 180Wh/km, respectively. BEVs registered in 2023 had an average electric range (measured at type-approval) of 430km, while PHEV had an average range of 69km.
In 2023, around 91,000 electric vans were sold in the EU-27. This represents 7.7% of the market share and an increase of around 2 percentage points from 2022. The majority of electric vans sold in 2023 were BEVs.
Figure 2. Newly registered electric cars by country
In 2023, the share of electric vehicles in new car registrations increased in most countries (EU-27, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) compared with 2022. The highest shares were found in Norway (91%), Sweden (61%) and Iceland (60%).
Germany, France and Norway together accounted for about 54% of all new BEV registrations among the 32 EEA member countries. Norway had the highest number of new BEVs registered in 2023, accounting for 83% of new car sales. PHEV percentage sales were highest in Sweden (22%), Belgium and Finland (both around 21%). In two European countries, the percentage of EV registrations remained lower than 5% of the total new fleet (Poland and Croatia).
Several measures have been deployed across Europe to support electric mobility, and to support emission reductions from this sector.