Trade of electric and hybrid electric cars in the European Union saw a significant increase in 2020, with 1.6 million exports and imports recorded last year. Electric and hybrid electric cars accounted for 14% of the EU’s total car exports and 30% of imports in 2020. The main destinations for EU exports of electric and hybrid electric cars was the United Kingdom.
In 2020, the European Union (EU) exported close to 5.2 million cars (petrol, diesel, electric and hybrid electric cars), while 3.0 million cars were imported, said EuroStat.
Petrol cars accounted for the majority of exported cars (64% of extra-EU car exports), followed by diesel cars (22%) and electric & hybrid electric cars (14%). In terms of imports, petrol cars accounted for over a half of extra-EU car imports (53%), followed by electric and hybrid electric cars (30%) and diesel cars (18%).
When looking at the 725 thousand exported electric cars and hybrid electric cars in detail: almost half of them were non-plug-in hybrid (49%), while around a quarter each were electric (27%) or plug-in hybrid (24%). Out of 892 thousand imported electric and hybrid electric cars, a half were non-plug-in hybrid (50%), a third were electric (34%) and plug-in hybrid accounted for the remaining share (16%).
Despite the general decrease in trade following the restrictive measures taken in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the EU’s exports and imports of electric and hybrid electric cars continued to gradually increase. Compared with 2017, extra-EU exports of electric and hybrid electric cars recorded almost a fivefold increase from 150 thousand exported cars in 2017 to 725 thousand in 2020, while extra-EU imports almost tripled from 301 thousand imported cars in 2017 to 892 thousand in 2020.
In 2020, the main destinations for EU exports of electric and hybrid electric cars was the United Kingdom (accounting for 39% of exported cars), followed by the United States (16%), Norway (10%) and China (9%).
Almost half of electric and hybrid electric car imports came to the EU from Japan and the United States (each accounting for 23% of imported cars), followed by South Korea (15%), the United Kingdom (14%), Turkey (10%) and China (9%).
