EU new-car market grows amid promising EV uptake
27 January 2026
The EU’s new-car market ended 2025 with overall growth following six months of continuous improvements. But which powertrains prospered, and is this positivity cause for celebration across the whole bloc? James Roberts, Autovista24 web editor investigates.
Between January and December 2025, the EU saw 10,822,831 new cars registered across its 27 member states, according to the latest data from ACEA.
This ensured a 1.8% year-on-year increase, equating to an additional 191,485 units compared to 2024’s deliveries. However, overall volumes remained well below pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. In total, 19 EU nations recorded improvements across the whole of 2025.
This full year of growth was helped by six months of consecutive volume increases, stretching from July to December. In the final month of 2025, a total of 963,319 new cars took to the EU’s roads. These units underpinned a 5.8% year-on-year upswing.
Varying fortunes for EU’s major markets
Of the EU’s major new-car markets, Spain consistently shone as a beacon of prosperity in 2025. Buoyed by healthy electric vehicle (EV) sales, supported by effective incentives, the country powered to double-digit growth of 12.9%.
Germany, the EU’s largest new-car market, also recorded a volume increase. In total, 2,857,591 new cars left the nation’s showrooms in 2025, providing a positive return of 1.4%. Like Spain, electrified powertrains, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), and hybrids, made up of full and mild-hybrids, led the way.
With 1,632,152 sales, France ended the year in a distinct malaise. The EU’s second largest player by unit volume staggered to a 5% drop across the year. This included declines in all but two of the powertrain groupings defined by ACEA.
The EU’s third largest market by volume, Italy endured a stagnant year in 2025. This was reflected in ACEA’s data, as the country limped to a 2.1% decline, with 1,524,843 new cars registered. The country’s year-on-year slip came despite some promising results spurred by short but sweet, late-year EV incentives.
Notable new-car market fortunes in 2025
Of the larger EU markets, Belgium endured a disappointing year. It saw a 7.5% dive year-on-year as 414,770 new-cars were sold. This was despite a strong December, which saw a 23% improvement compared with 12 months prior, helped by double-digit BEV and PHEV sales.
Poland ended the year in a strong position, with an 8.3% uptick in new-car volumes. This was boosted by consistent triple-digit monthly BEV and PHEV unit improvements. In December alone these gains amounted to 341.6% and 260.7% respectively.
This healthy EV uptake has been supported by Poland’s NaszEauto incentives programme. It offers benefits, such as tax relief and scrappage rewards for older internal-combustion engine (ICE) cars.
Similarly, and with healthy EV sales, Portugal saw a 7.3% year-on-year volume increase, and Czechia reported a 7.4% improvement.
More generally, the largest year-on-year percentage increase came in Lithuania at 39.3%, equating to 41.974 new-cars registered. The biggest year-on-year fall was experienced in the fellow Baltic State of Estonia, which endured a 48.6% drop
Are positive EV adoption trends the reality?
In December, 320,812 new EVs, made up of BEVs and PHEVs, were registered in the EU. This was an increase of 46.1% compared to the same month in 2024 and gave the technology a 33.3% market share. This itself was an increase of 9.2 percentage points (pp).
Spanning 2025, a total of 2,896,257 new BEVs and PHEVs took to the EU’s roads. This equated to year-on-year increase of 687,231 units.
In terms of market share, this gave EVs a 26.8% hold, up 6pp from the year prior. Despite clear increases in the uptake of electrified powertrains, the figures remain lacklustre.
Looking solely at BEVs, the technology captured 17.4% of the EU new-car market in 2025 with 1,880,370 units sold. Its market share increase amounted to just 3.8pp year on year. In December alone, BEVs achieved 217,898 deliveries, equating to a jump of 51% year on year. This gave the powertrain a 22.6% hold of the overall total, up 6.7pp.
Impressively, between January and December, 22 of the 27 EU member states registered year-on-year BEV sales gains. Germany soared to a 43.2% increase, with 545,142 all-electric units reaching customers.
Meanwhile, Spain saw 101,627 BEVs join the nation’s car parc, a 77.1% uptick. Even amid a disappointing year overall, both France and Italy witnessed positive all-electric vehicle increases at 12.5% and 44.2% respectively.
Aside the aforementioned ‘big four’ new-car markets, other notable BEV adopters included Austria with a 35.9% increase, Denmark with 42%, and Poland with 161.5%.
PHEVs flatter to deceive
On the surface, PHEV sales have delivered impressive figures in the EU’s new-car market. January aside, the technology has enjoyed double-digit gains each month.
December saw 102,914 PHEVs take to EU roads, a 36.7% year-on-year boost and a 10.7% market share, the highest of the year.
Between January and December, 1,015,887 PHEVs were sold in the EU. This ensured a 254,582-unit increase, plus a 33.4% upswing, the highest of any powertrain in the bloc. However, on closer inspection, PHEV success has been built on relatively low baseline figures.
As a result, the technology ended up with the third smallest market share in 2025 at 9.4%. Worryingly this was 17.2pp and 1,864,411 units behind overall petrol registrations.
This is despite some eye-catching triple-digit year-on-year gains in some nations. This included Spain with a 111.7% increase, Poland with 119.4%, Lithuania increasing by 164%, and Latvia sealing the largest PHEV uptake at 258%. The latter two nations, however, command relatively small new-car markets.
Hybrids hold the cards
The thorny issue of EV market breakthrough in the EU is apparent when set against the established popularity of hybrid vehicles, and the enduring appeal of petrol.
Across 2025, hybrids reigned as the most popular new-car choice in the EU. Considered as a stepping-stone towards full electrification, hybrid powertrains, held 34.5% of the market. In total 3,373,352 were registered in the EU, overtaking the volume of petrol models for the first time across a full year.
In December alone, hybrids achieved 324,799 registrations, a 5.8% increase compared to the same month in 2024. Their 33.7% market share remained stable year on year.
Hybrid popularity has gone a considerable way to inflating the EU’s electrified sector. Adding these volumes to BEV and PHEV numbers gives a combined market share of 61.3% for 2025. This is an increase of 9.6pp compared with 2024.
Across the bloc, just four nations posted declines in hybrid uptake over the 12-month period. The most notable being the Netherlands with a 4.7% drop.
This enduring appeal has helped push electrified vehicle market share in the EU to a seemingly impressive 25.8pp ahead of ICE sales. However, while the trend of diminishing petrol and diesel registrations prevailed in 2025, the reality is more complex.
Petrol still popular
Despite recording double-digit year-on-year registrations declines in every month except September, new sales of petrol cars remain significant in the EU.
In terms of total registrations, petrol vehicles accounted for 26.6% of the overall new-car market in 2025. This capped the second highest portion after hybrid sales, as well as the second-best overall volume of 2,880,298 vehicles. This was, however, behind the total of hybrid models for the first time across a full year.
Petrol uptake in 2025 was shaped by a significant fall of 662,678 units year-on-year, and with it, a 6.7pp drop in market share. It also witnessed sales declines in 22 of the 27 EU member states. However, its overall share crucially remained 8.2pp ahead of BEVs, and 17.2pp ahead of PHEVs.
Coupled with this, petrol’s market share dropped by just 2.8pp between January and December. This is a potential problem for wider EU emissions targets. A continued, gradual demise of petrol, combined with low and inconsistent EV sales in 2026 could stunt wider EV uptake.
The issue could be complicated by the recent Automotive Package. Announced in December 2025, the European Commission confirmed plans for greater emissions flexibility. Central to this, carmakers will only need to cut vehicle CO2 tailpipe emissions by 90%, compared with 2021 figures.
Crucially, ICE-powered models, mild hybrids, PHEVs and extended-range electric vehicles will still be available to purchase. BEVs and hydrogen vehicles will also be available. As a result, petrol power might continue to hold significant sway in the EU’s new-car market throughout 2026, and possibly beyond.
In December, petrol saw another significant drop in registrations, with volumes down 19.2% to 216,492 units. This left the technology with a market share of 22.5%, down by 6.9pp.
Diesel dying out
2025 proved that petrol continues to enjoy a weighty influence in the EU. This, however, is increasingly not the case for diesel.
Like petrol, diesel witnessed declines in all but three EU nations in 2025. However, unlike its ICE sibling, the fuel type slid to an 8.9% market share, a fall of 3pp year on year. This was only propped up by ‘other’ powertrain registrations, including hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles, natural gas vehicles, liquid-petroleum gas, E85/ethanol, and other fuels.
Diesel also witnessed the biggest slide in year-on-year new-car volumes with 960,024 registrations marking out a 24.2% slide. This was not helped by a 22.4% drop in December, with 68,992 units equating to a 7.2% market share.
However, when combined with petrol volumes, unified ICE registrations held 35.5% of overall registrations in 2025. Although this is down from 45.2% in 2024, it keeps fossil-fuel-powered new-cars a sizeable 9.7pp ahead of all-electric registration totals.
While this gap narrowed from 11.9pp in January, it goes some way to emphasise the challenge that BEV and PHEV sales need to overcome to achieve parity and eventual dominance in the EU new-car market.
