European car market in the first half of 2026: electric vehicles’ share reaches 20.7%

According to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA), the European market for new passenger cars grew by 5.7% to 5,896,683 units in January-June 2026. Such a result, achieved amid geopolitical turbulence, was made possible by an explosive surge in demand for electric vehicles (+35.1%), with hybrid cars also selling like hot cakes. Eco-activists are celebrating victory, while the systemic crisis in the European automotive industry is only intensifying. We explain how this can be.

The thing is that good sales do not mean good profits: the costs of doing business in Europe today are so high (the green agenda, high taxes, social burdens, very strict market regulation by authorities, lengthy approvals for new projects) that achieving profitability here is extremely difficult even with strong sales. All the major European carmakers are currently reporting declining revenues. Even the seemingly unsinkable BMW Group finds itself on the brink of crisis, while Volkswagen Group is already in a state of transition from crisis to catastrophe.

The current growth in the European car market has been driven by electric vehicles, demand for which has risen due to the geopolitical manoeuvres of US President Donald Trump in the Middle East: military action has led to spikes in oil prices and delivery problems caused by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Even Tesla, which had been written off in Europe as an also-ran due to its outdated model lineup and Elon Musk's political views, managed to sharply increase its EV sales in the region in the first half of 2026, namely by 54.6% to 170,351 units.

ACEA statistics are based on registration data, which most accurately reflect the state of the European car market, but for ease of understanding we will use the word "sales" rather than "registrations", as that is more familiar. Unfortunately, ACEA does not publish sales statistics by model, and there are currently no other openly accessible data sources for Europe. The analytical agency JATO Dynamics, which previously produced excellent European reviews with model-level statistics, stopped publishing them last summer.

Below we present ACEA statistics for the first half of the year by manufacturer and individual brand. Alas, there is no breakdown by brand within Geely Group, BYD and Chery in this table; we will only note that Chinese companies are gradually establishing themselves in Europe, and their share will only grow, including through the localisation of key models at European plants. Yesterday, for example, it was officially announced that Geely will produce its crossovers at the Ford plant in Valencia (Spain).

Next, let us look at how the European new car market is currently divided by powertrain type: the share of electric vehicles rose from 15.6% to 20.7% compared with the first half of 2025, the share of hybrids (non-plug-in) increased from 34.8% to 37.3%, the share of plug-in hybrids grew from 8.5% to 9.8%, the share of petrol cars fell from 28.4% to 22.2%, and the share of diesel cars decreased from 9.4% to 7.5%.

ACEA also has an interesting table showing the distribution of powertrain types by country. It shows that the main consumers of electric vehicles in Europe are Germany, France, Denmark, Belgium and Italy. Interestingly, Spain, which has become the main production hub for Chinese companies in Europe, is in the middle of the pack when it comes to EV consumption, while the Netherlands was the only country where there was no growth in EV sales in the first half of the year.