Each year, roughly 10 million new passenger cars are registered in the EU. Historically, these cars were almost internal combustion engine models, fuelled by either petrol or diesel. Now, cars with electric motors make up a significant and growing share of new registrations. By 2024, 23% of new cars registered in the EU were electric, up from 18% in 2021, meaning one in every five newly registered cars is electric. Leaders include Norway, with an electric registration share of over 90%, and Iceland, Denmark and Sweden with shares above 60%. On the other end, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria have the slowest take-ups, with electric registration shares at 5%.
Factories within the EU have the capacity to assemble just under four million electric vehicles annually. This is higher than domestic demand, at around 2.5 million. Capacity to assemble a further 3.5 million vehicles is either already constructed and soon set to come online, or under construction and anticipated to come online in the next three years. Most facilities are in Germany, France and Hungary.
The EU is a net exporter of electric vehicles. In 2024, exports were €38 billion compared to imports of €24 billion, resulting in an €14 billion net export position. More than half of exports are to the US and UK, while a little under half of imports are from China. Further notable import shares are from the UK, the US and South Korea.
Patenting related to electric vehicles and EV batteries grew strongly from 2000, with global patent families rising from around 860 to 4,400 by 2024. Europe remains an important source of innovation, but its patenting peaked around 2020 and has since fallen back, while China has continued to expand and is now the largest region in the dataset. The United States also saw growth through the 2010s before declining in recent years. Recent patenting is concentrated in battery pack integration and electric powertrains, with smaller volumes for lithium-ion cells and electrode manufacturing.
