In the third quarter of 2026, battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales hit record highs across Europe, with 13 of 27 EU countries posting their highest-ever quarterly BEV sales.
BEVs are now the top powertrain sold in 11 European countries. Of course, markets still differ significantly. The BEV share in newly registered cars ranges from 4.5% (Croatia) to 98.5% (Norway).
Key facts
From the new Q3 data (based on the passenger car registration data from the European Car Manufacturers Association (ACEA) a few key milestones can be extracted. First, battery electric vehicles already account for 27% of the EU new car market. Second, BEV sales exceeded combined petrol and diesel sales.
After surpassing petrol sales for the first time in the second quarter (Q2, 2026), BEV sales in the EU were now 44% higher than petrol. BEVs hold a record share in 16 EU countries. Finally, pure petrol car sales fell to 19%, down from 26% in the same quarter last year.
Ten-fold in less than eight years
Looking at an overview of almost eight years of quarterly new car registrations in the EU, we can see a major shift from petrol and diesel cars to electrified vehicles. In the pre-pandemic second quarter of 2019, the EU sold more than 2 million (2,065K) petrol cars and almost 1.13 million (1,129.7K) diesel cars in three months.
At that time, hybrid cars accounted for fewer than 200,000 sales (185.6K), BEVs fewer than 60,000 (56.1K), and PHEVs fewer than 30,000 (28.3K). Combined, electrifed cars represented 270,000 new vehicles or 7.8% of the total market.
In Q3 2026, almost 900,000 hybrid cars were sold in the EU, representing 35.1% of the total sales, followed by BEVs selling more than 710,000 cars (27.9%), petrol cars selling just under half a million (19.4%), PHEVs selling almost 283,000 units (11.1%), and diesel cars selling 162,610 units (6.4% of the total market share).
As we can also see, the total EU market has fallen sharply from pre-pandemic levels (from almost 3.5 million cars to just under 3 million in Q2 2019 compared to Q2 2026), but the share of electrified cars has grown almost ten-fold to just over 70%.
Significant milestones
Several countries have reached significant milestones in the transition to electric mobility. The following table summarises these milestones (sources: T&E and ACEA).
