Electric car sales have surged in Europe - so why is adoption still slow?

Nov 13, 2023

Electric cars ... even with subsidies, cost is still one of the biggest barriers to mass market adoption. Image: Unsplash/Chuttersnap

Andrea Willige

Senior Writer, Forum Agenda

Our Impact

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how Mobility is affecting economies, industries and global issues

A hand holding a looking glass by a lake

Crowdsource Innovation

Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:

Mobility

Figure illustrating the global near-term passenger EV sales and share of new passenger vehicle sales, by market.

EV sales are expected to reach almost 27 million in 2026. Image: Bloomberg

Have you read?

Europe’s EV registrations have consistently grown over the past 12 months Image: Bloomberg, ACEA

Graphs illustrating fuel types of new passenger cars in the EU.

The share of EVs in Europe has grown consistently since 2018, with sales of cars with internal combustion engines (ICEs) declining. Image: ACAE

Discover

How is the World Economic Forum helping to scale vehicle electrification?

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

The Agenda Weekly

A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda

Subscribe today

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.

More on Mobility
See all

How to scale up and accelerate the supply of zero-emissions trucks

Rosa Esi Ennison and Thibault Villien De Gabiole

November 30, 2023

America’s public transit doesn’t have to be this way. It can learn lessons from abroad

David Zipper

November 30, 2023

Benchmarking sustainable mobility in South America and other city-focused stories you need to read

Lisa Chamberlain

November 23, 2023

Autonomous mobility: 3 lessons for success from Saudi Arabia

Omaimah Bamasag, Basma AlBuhairan and Waleed Gowharji

October 16, 2023

Co-shaping a responsible autonomous mobility future: Here are 6 things we must consider

Mary Cummings and Maria Alonso

October 16, 2023

Not all green transport policies are made equal. A new report looks at ways of accelerating the urban transition

Ewan Thomson

September 20, 2023