Electric vehicles surge to 10.5 percent market share in 2020: ACEA

Electric vehicles saw a surge in demand last year, accounting for 10.5 percent of all new car registrations in the European Union, compared to a 3.0 percent market share the year before, according to data from ACEA.

Although the overall decline of 3 million units in car registrations as a result of COVID-19 hit diesel and petrol-powered vehicles the hardest, conventional fuel types still dominated EU car sales in terms of market share (75.5 percent) in 2020. Hybrid electric vehicles made up 11.9 percent of total passenger car sales across the EU, up from 5.7 percent in 2019.

During the fourth quarter, registrations of EVs in the EU jumped from 130,992 units in 2019 to almost half a million (+262.8 percent), surpassing hybrid electric cars in sales volume for the first time. This strong increase in demand for battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrids (PHEV) – with registrations growing by 216.9 percent and 331.0 percent respectively – was largely driven by government stimuli for low and zero-emission vehicles.