More and more people in Europe are choosing to go electric – not necessarily because they care about the environment, but because it makes sense and doesn't involve much of a compromise. Even in 2025, which saw a rollback of incentives and slowing demand growth, electric vehicle sales on the continent rose.
But companies like Volkswagen, BMW, Renault and others face countless challenges. From competition from China to the arms race, here's what defined Europe's 2025 year in electric vehicles and what to expect in 2026 and beyond.
Mazda 6e – Eurocharge 2025
The expansion of public charging station networks has made it much easier to find an available, working charger. It's much easier to charge today than it was even three years ago, and the numbers back it up.
European Commission reports that there are now more than 1 million chargers in the European Union. The statistics do not include Switzerland and Norway, which are not part of the EU but have extensive public and private charging networks.
EAFO the data shows that the clear leader is the Netherlands, which has almost 200,000 public chargers, more per capita than any other country in Europe, although most are low-power AC chargers. Norway, a global leader in the adoption of electric vehicles, has around 30,000 kiosks (about a third of which are DC fast chargers).
Even though many European countries have reduced or eliminated incentives, subsidies and tax breaks for electric vehicles, Europeans still bought 33% more plug-in cars in November this year compared to 2024, according to a report published by Reference mineral intelligencewhich includes the European Union, Switzerland, Norway and the UK.
The report estimates plug-in car sales growth in China at 19%, equating to more than 11.6 million vehicles, compared with 3.8 million in Europe.
European Automobile Manufacturers AssociationWHAT), which covers only the European Union, reported that pure electric vehicles accounted for 16.9% of all new car purchases in the EU from January to November, up from 13.4% for the same period in 2024. That's 1.66 million new electric vehicles, mostly concentrated in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France.
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ACEA data shows EU EV sales were up 44.1% in November this year compared to the same month in 2024, with PHEV sales also up an impressive 38.4% and plug-in hybrid sales up a more modest 4.2%.
The growing popularity of electric vehicles has led to a sharp drop in sales of cars with internal combustion engines. In France, gasoline car sales fell by 32% in the first 11 months of 2025. In EU countries the drop was 18.6%.
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An increasing share of plug-in cars in Europe are coming from China, as brands such as BYD and Geely expand across the continent. A Forbes The report, citing Schmidt Automotive Research, said the share of Chinese brands' plug-ins in Europe will nearly double in 2025, rising from 3.4% to 6%, and is forecast to grow further in 2026 and beyond.
And if the growth of chargers in Europe seems impressive, the scale of China is still on another planet. According to State Council of ChinaThere were 4.63 million public chargers and 14.7 million private chargers in the country – about 19.3 million in total – with an average public network power of 45.34 kW. China also has the highest charging capacity, with some new electric vehicles capable of megawatts of charging under the right conditions.
In Europe, by contrast, today the maximum power is around 350–400 kW – and that's mostly fine, because most cars here can't handle much more than that anyway. However, networks are starting to evolve: Ionity has begun deploying Alpitronic HYC1000 equipment, initially limited to 600kW rather than the full 1MW they can provide.
Eurocharge 2025 Transfagaras
Looking back to 2025, it is clear that Europeans want to buy electric vehicles regardless of incentives. Of course, getting a cheaper electric car with government help is nice, but it's not as necessary now because there are more options at lower prices in Europe than before.
They are much more achievable than five years ago, and much better, although still a long way from achieving price parity with internal combustion engine cars. The star of this year's sales in Europe is the Renault 5 E-Tech, which I drove earlier this year. It gave me hope that local automakers still have a chance to fight China. It's selling well, with Renault reporting that more than 100,000 examples were built during its 15-month production run.
Renault is developing an even more affordable small electric car. Twingo Electronic Technology. And its budget division Dacia is working on its own version based on the same platform. even lower entry price.
While it's easier than ever to buy and own an electric car in Europe, with more people doing so, the growing presence of Chinese manufacturers remains a cause of concern for the continent's domestic auto industry. China has a near-total monopoly on battery production, and much of the cells and raw materials for European electric vehicles continue to come from China.
If this trend continues (with no end in sight), Europe may simply trade its dependence on oil (most of which it imports) for dependence on Chinese electric vehicle batteries. So Europe must first be able to produce electric cars that buyers will prefer to Chinese-made models (and a new wave of new generation electric vehicles from Western manufacturers show great promise in this regard). It should then consider ways to localize its supply chain for battery and EV technology to limit its dependence on China as much as possible.
What happens in 2026 will be a good indicator of where things will go for the rest of the decade.
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