Almost 1.9 million battery-electric cars rolled off dealer forecourts across the European Union last year, according to figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). That gave electric vehicles (EVs) a 17.4 per cent share of the new-car market, up from 13.6 per cent the year before. Germany led the charge, with registrations jumping 43.2 per cent. France and Belgium posted healthy double-digit gains. December alone saw a 51 per cent year-on-year surge in battery-electric sales. Petrol and diesel, meanwhile, slumped to a combined 35.5 per cent of the market, down from 45.2 per cent in 2024. For the first time, buying a car with a combustion engine is becoming the minority choice in Europe’s biggest economies.
In America, the electric-car market is in reverse. New EV sales fell 28 per cent year on year in the first quarter of 2026, to around 212,600 units, according to estimates from Cox Automotive. The EV share of new-car sales has sunk to 5.8 per cent, well below the nearly 12 per cent peak reached in the third quarter of 2025, when buyers rushed to take advantage of the 7,500 US dollars federal tax credit before the Trump administration killed it on September 30. Jim Farley, Ford’s chief executive, warned that the market could shrink to half its former size. He called the credit’s removal “a game-changer.”
The used-car market tells a different story. Cox reckons Americans snapped up 93,500 secondhand EVs in the first quarter, up 12 per cent on a year earlier and 17 per cent on the previous quarter. Used EV prices have dropped to within 1,300 US dollars of their petrol equivalents, making them a bargain for budget-conscious drivers priced out of the new market. A wave of lease returns from the tax-credit era is about to flood dealer lots with cheap, nearly new electric cars. The irony is hard to miss: the policy designed to kill off EVs may end up creating the most compelling buying opportunity in their short history.
Pain at the pump
Then there is the war. The joint American and Israeli strikes on Iran, launched on February 28, have turned the Strait of Hormuz from a shipping lane into a chokepoint. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply normally passes through it. With flows reduced to a trickle, Brent crude has surged past 100 US dollars a barrel. EU petrol prices climbed 15 per cent between early January and mid-March; diesel leapt 26 per cent. In Germany, petrol shot above two euros a litre. Spain saw a 19 per cent spike. Swedish drivers have been hit hardest, with a 20 per cent jump.
European motorists are getting the message. Used-car platforms across the continent report a scramble for electric vehicles. Aramisauto, a French online retailer, saw its EV share of sales nearly double in three weeks, from 6.5 per cent to 12.7 per cent. “There is currently an electric car bonanza in the used market,” said Terje Dahlgren, an analyst at Finn.no, Norway’s biggest used-car marketplace. Germany’s mobile.de reported surging demand for electrics as petrol prices climbed.
The early 2026 registration data suggests the new-car market is following suit. Battery-electric vehicles accounted for 18.8 per cent of EU sales in the first two months of the year. Petrol-car registrations collapsed by 23.3 per cent in February, with France recording an astonishing 48.5 per cent drop. Transport & Environment, a Brussels think-tank, projects that EVs could reach 23 per cent of new registrations in 2026 and 28 per cent by 2027.
That forecast rests on more than pump-price panic. The EU’s tightened CO2 emissions targets for carmakers, which kicked in at the start of 2025, are doing much of the heavy lifting. Three pooling groups (representing half the European market, including BMW, Mercedes-Volvo, and a Tesla alliance that takes in Stellantis and Toyota) had already met their 2025–27 targets by the end of last year. Fleet buyers, who make up the bulk of new-car purchases in many European markets, are switching to electric vehicles to hit corporate emissions commitments and take advantage of lower benefit-in-kind taxation. Chinese brands, led by BYD, are doubling their European sales, putting competitive pressure on incumbents. The charging network is filling in, too: 96 per cent of EU countries had already met their 2026 infrastructure targets by the end of 2025, a year ahead of schedule.
Wars have a way
None of this guarantees a smooth ride. Broader economic issues, such as tariff-driven inflation and the threat of stagflation flagged by the IMF, could squeeze household budgets and slow all car purchases, electric or otherwise. The EU’s December 2025 decision to soften its proposed 2035 ban on combustion-engine sales, replacing it with a 90 per cent emissions-reduction target, sent a muddled signal about its long-term commitment. And Europe’s carmakers still struggle with the basic maths of making affordable small EVs profitable.
For all that, the direction of travel looks clear. The price gap between electric and petrol cars is shrinking as battery costs fall and new models crowd into cheaper segments. Large EVs have already reached sticker-price parity with their combustion equivalents. Transport & Environment reckons small and medium-sized models will get there by 2030, provided the EU holds its regulatory nerve.
The great irony is that a conflict fought, in part, over the oil-rich Persian Gulf may do more for Europe’s electric transition than any amount of subsidy or regulation. Wars have a way of clarifying what peacetime committees cannot. Every euro-fifty spike at the pump is a reminder that the economics of driving a petrol car depend on the stability of shipping routes thousands of kilometres away. An EV plugged into a French nuclear grid, or a Danish wind farm, carries no such geopolitical risk premium. For European drivers who had been wavering, the calculation just got a lot simpler.
Photo: Dreamstime.
