EViF white paper: European BEV sales growth to slow in 2024

New BEV sales in the 31 countries of the EU+Efta+UK hit 2mn for the first time in 2023, growing by over 28pc year-on-year. But that did not stop alarms being raised about the pace of growth even before the year had ended.

EV inFocus has taken a quantitative and qualitative — with the help of three leading industry analysts — approach to investigating whether the sense of gloom over the rate of BEV adoption in Europe is justified. And our new white paper finds that fears over a slowdown in growth are to some extent justified: we do see volumes rising by 'only' 16.3pc in 2024.

But this still means an additional c.330,000 more all-electric sales than seen in 2023. And, with consensus forecasts for overall European new passenger vehicle sales lower (albeit not yet born out in January-February Acea data, which is showing 10pc growth), it suggests that the BEV penetration rate into the European sales mix could continue to progress.

Among the white paper's other key findings are:

— Automakers’ attitudes to how they want to be positioned ahead of the start of new CO₂ rules in 2025 will have a major impact on how 2024 unfolds

  — Rollout of more affordable BEV options will be a key driver of accelerating adoption

— China’s approach to the European market will continue to be a gradualist one, rather than any ‘invasion’ doom mongering

— Germany, Europe’s largest national market, could have a bumpy year

— Lack of buy-side incentives and too much flexibility in ZEV mandate rules will hamper UK growth

— But there are reasons to be cheerful in France and the Benelux region

— Norway’s sticky 20pc holdouts provides a valuable lesson on what areas are still not being best served by BEVs.

The white paper is available for download here for all EV inFocus' registered users: