There are 4.5 million electric cars in the EU. In Italy only one in every two hundred

Brussels – The share of electric cars in Europe is growing, a drop in the ocean compared with diesel and gasoline. According to Eurostat, 1.5 million new electric cars were registered in EU countries in 2023, bringing the total number to 4.5 million. That is 1.7 percent of the over 255 million cars on the Union’s roads.

The glass is half empty or half full, depending on the point of view. In 2023, the share of battery electric cars among new registrations reached 14.6 percent, or roughly one in every seven new registrations, confirming a figure that has been growing steadily and rapidly since 2018. In 2023 alone, the EU’s electric car fleet increased by 48.5 percent compared with 2022, from 3 million to 4.5 million.

There are noticeable differences among EU countries. The Queen of electric is Denmark, where battery electric cars account for 7.1 percent of the total. Similarly, Eurostat reported high shares in Sweden (5.9 percent), Luxembourg (5.1 percent), and the Netherlands (5.0 percent). But 14 countries out of the 27  recorded shares of less than 1 percent: at the bottom of the ranking were Cyprus, Greece, and Poland, with a 0.2 percent share.

Italy, the EU country with the highest number of cars per thousand inhabitants, is well below the European average despite tentative growth. The share of electric cars in Italy rose from 0.39 percent in 2022 to 0.53 percent in 2023. They totaled 158,131 in 2022, rising to 219,540 as of December 31, 2023.

However, in 2024 there could be a pause – or at least a slowdown – in the growth of the electric market in the EU due to the tariffs Brussels imposed on electric cars made in China, which kicked in on July 4. However, Made-in-China electric vehicle sales in Europe have grown dramatically in recent years with 437,000 units sold in 2023, almost a third of new electric car registrations.