ACEA — 2022-11-25
News from Brussels
The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) has analysed the trends and developments in battery electric vehicle (BEVs) markets. While China is currently ahead of Europe and the US in the electrification of the car market, the European market will rebound in 2025 and take the lead again on the other world regions by 2030.
Electrification trend outlook
So far in 2022, nearly 20% of all new cars registered in China are battery electric vehicles (BEVs), meaning that the country is now ahead of Europe and well ahead of the US in the electrification of the car market.
However, the share of battery electric cars is expected to reach almost 30% of the European market by 2025 and to exceed 70% by 2030 – taking the lead again on the other world regions.
First three quarters 2022
Chinese sales of new BEVs increased by 89.4% to reach 2.9m cars sold from January to September 2022. This result was largely driven by government incentives seeking to boost sales after the disruptions of the April-May lockdowns, which mostly benefited the purchase of new electric vehicles.
At the same time, growth has been strong but less steep in the European region – including the EU, EFTA countries and the UK – where sale volumes of battery electric cars totalled 1m units, up 25.7% compared to the same nine-month period in 2021.
Key challenges
The rollout of charging points across Europe remains the key challenge and this trend can only be sustained if governments step up investments in infrastructure.
As the latest ACEA Progress Report shows, to date almost 50% of all charging points for electric cars are concentrated in only two EU countries – the Netherlands (90,000 chargers) and Germany (60,000) – which make up less than 10% of the entire EU surface area.
Indeed, up to 6.8m public charging points would be required across the EU by 2030 to reach the proposed 55% CO2 reduction for passenger cars – meaning there should be over 22 times growth in under 10 years.