New registrations of battery-electric cars in the European Union rose sharply in 2025, far outpacing growth in the broader auto market and lifting electrified drivetrains to more than half of all new vehicle sales, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).
A total of 1,880,370 electric cars were newly registered across the EU last year, an increase of 29.9% compared with 2024, ACEA said. Battery-electric vehicles accounted for 17.4% of all new registrations, up from 13.6% a year earlier. By comparison, the overall EU passenger car market grew by just 1.8% in 2025 and remains below pre-pandemic levels.
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In its annual report, ACEA said electric vehicle adoption is progressing broadly in line with expectations but has yet to reach levels required for the long-term transition away from combustion engines. “The battery-electric car market share reached 17.4%, in line with projections for the year, yet still a level that leaves room for growth to stay on track with the transition,” the association said, adding that hybrid-electric vehicles remain the most popular powertrain choice among buyers.
Hybrid-electric vehicles accounted for 34.5% of new EU registrations in 2025, while plug-in hybrids reached a 9.4% market share, overtaking diesel cars at 8.9%. Combined with battery-electric vehicles, models with a charging connection represented 26.8% of all new registrations. ACEA cautioned, however, that its hybrid category includes both mild and full hybrids, making it difficult to assess how far consumers are shifting away from internal combustion engines.
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Despite a sharp decline in petrol and diesel registrations — down 18.7% and 26.6% respectively — ACEA said mild hybrids, which still rely primarily on combustion engines, are counted as electrified vehicles in its statistics.
Growth in battery-electric registrations was strongest in the EU’s largest markets, which together account for about 62% of demand. Germany recorded a 43.2% increase in BEV registrations in 2025, while the Netherlands, Belgium and France all posted double-digit growth. Spain and Denmark both surpassed 100,000 new electric car registrations, and Poland recorded the fastest growth rate, with volumes more than doubling year on year.
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Outside the EU, battery-electric car sales also rose strongly. Among EFTA countries, Norway remained the largest BEV market, while Iceland recorded the highest growth rate from a smaller base. The United Kingdom registered 473,348 new electric cars in 2025, a 23.9% increase, ranking second in Europe behind Germany. Across the EU, EFTA countries and the UK combined, ACEA recorded 2,585,187 new battery-electric car registrations, corresponding to a 19.5% market share.
The European trend mirrors accelerating growth at the global level. Worldwide electric vehicle sales rose to 20.7 million units in 2025, up 20% from the previous year, according to a report by market research firm Rho Motion. The increase of 3.6 million vehicles exceeded the growth recorded in 2024, marking the largest annual rise on record and extending a streak of year-on-year global EV sales growth that has now lasted more than a decade.
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Manufacturer-level EU data show diverging performances. Tesla, the only major automaker selling exclusively battery-electric vehicles, registered 150,504 cars in the EU in 2025, a decline of 37.9% from the previous year, reducing its market share to 1.4%. BYD, which sells both electric and plug-in hybrid models, recorded 128,827 registrations, up 227.8%, reaching a 1.2% share.