Battery-electric vehicle registrations in Europe grew by 38 percent last October

According to data published by ACEA, the European automobile industry association, last October 173,173 vehicles with fully electric powertrains were registered in this market. This represents a 38.6 percent increase over the same month last year. As a result, the market share of this type of vehicle in the total rose to 18.9 percent.

Battery-electric vehicle registrations grew strongly, as we can see, and these figures are even more positive if we include registration data from the United Kingdom and the EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), with a total of 225,399 pure electric vehicles registered and a market share of 20.6 percent.

There is not only good news, however, as the transition to electric mobility is very uneven across Europe. 65 percent of the electric vehicle registrations mentioned above were concentrated in just four European countries: Germany with 52,425 units, France with 34,108, followed by the Netherlands and Belgium. In the rest of the countries, especially the smaller ones, the share of electric models in total registrations was much lower. Noteworthy are electric registrations in Estonia, with only 77 vehicles (35 percent fewer), Malta with 150 (34 percent fewer) and Greece with just 799 (a 13 percent drop).

On the other hand, although the overall electric registration figures are still modest, in Eastern European countries something seems to have started to change. This is the case of Poland, with 4,812 units and a spectacular growth of 320 percent, Slovenia with growth of 208 percent, or Bulgaria, Romania or Croatia, with growth rates between 70 and 84 percent.

Positive data for the full year, though with nuances

With the October figures now recorded, so far this year through that month, 1.47 million pure electric vehicles have been registered in the European Union, a 25.7 percent increase over the same month last year, with a market share in this case of 16.4 percent. Again, if we include the United Kingdom and the EFTA countries, this figure exceeds 2.02 million, with a market share of 18.3 percent.

Following the publication of these data, ACEA has not missed the opportunity to warn that the pace of transition to electric mobility is slower than desired if the previously set decarbonisation targets are to be met. The current reality of the European market places plug-in and non-plug-in hybrid models as the preferred choice of European drivers. In October, plug-in hybrids grew 43.2 percent, while conventional hybrids already exceed 3.1 million cumulative units for the year. Petrol and diesel, on the other hand, continue to fall sharply.