Electric Vehicle Adoption: Understanding the Numbers
This report examines the growing presence of electric vehicles (EVs) within the broader vehicle market. It looks at both the raw numbers and the proportion of new vehicle registrations that are electric.
The report focuses on two main types of EVs:
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Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs): These cars run entirely on electricity stored in a battery, which needs to be plugged into the grid for charging.
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Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs): These vehicles blend an electric motor with an internal combustion engine. They can use either or both systems, and the battery can be charged from the grid.
How the Data is Analyzed
The core metric being tracked is the percentage of EVs (BEVs and PHEVs) compared to the overall fleet for each vehicle type – passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. This is calculated by dividing the number of EVs by the total number of vehicles.
Why This Matters: Policy and Environment
Stricter rules are pushing for less polluting, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Because of this, new EV registrations are an indication of improvements in fuel efficiency and lower emissions from road transport. The main goal of this data is to keep an eye on how EVs are spreading through the market.
The Bigger Picture: Transport and Emissions
Transportation accounts for roughly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. To address this concern, EU laws set emission limits for new cars and vans, pushing for better fuel efficiency and more zero- or low-emission vehicles, such as EVs.
Monitoring new EV registrations helps gauge the progress toward environmental goals.
Targets and Regulations
There aren’t any specific EV targets set until 2025.
Manufacturers get a break on CO2 emission targets if a certain percentage of their new vehicles are zero or low-emission. From 2025, this threshold is 15%, rising to 35% from 2030 onwards. The related policy document is Regulation (EU) 2019/631, which sets CO2 emission standards for new cars and light commercial vehicles.
Data Accuracy
The report does not specify methodological or rationale uncertainty information, however, the dataset has no reported uncertainties.
Data Sources
The data comes from the European Environment Agency (EEA), which monitors CO2 emissions from passenger cars. Data is available from 2010 to 2022 (final data), with provisional figures for 2023.
