Every fifth new car across Western Europe now a pure electric model

Over 20% of Western Europe's new passenger car market is now accounted for by pure electric BEV models

The Western European new BEV passenger car market has now broken through the 20 per cent share of the new car market for the first time, according to Schmidt Automotive Research compiled data.

Despite individual months surpassing the total, with November being no exception at 25.5%, it is the first time on an annual cumulative basis that the volume has surpassed 20 per cent, and it is expected to remain above that figure with just one month of the year remaining.

Between January and November 2.19 million BEV models were registered on Western European roads out of a total of 10.75 million new cars across all drivetrains.

The market has been driven by a change to the EU CO2 fleet emissions target that dropped by 15 percent over the previous year, although the analysed data includes the UK and EFTA markets. Norway is included in the EU's fleet targets, while the UK and Switzerland are not.

The market has accelerated dramatically over a slow 2024 as OEMs were thought to have been withholding new BEV model launches prior to the CO2 change, as well as pushing 2024 orders into 2025 deliveries. Last year was also impacted negatively by Germany removing purchase incentives for pure electric cars.

With PHEVs added to the equation, the market recorded a 30.5% plug-in new-car mix after 11 months in 2025.

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Source: Schmidt Automotive Research 

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*Western Europe 18 Markets: EU Member States prior to the 2004 enlargement plus EFTA markets Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, plus UK