With electric vehicle (EV) adoption once again experiencing a steady rise across the globe; the world is looking to Europe as the example for a consistent, dedicated approach to the gradual elimination of traditional petrol & diesel vehicles.
At MOVE 2025, John Murray, Head of EVs at LCP Delta spoke about the current trends, forecasts and future of EV adoption throughout Europe – all within a short, albeit extremely informative, 10-minute window.
Speaking on EV adoption over the course of the first four months of 2025, Murray introduced statistics stating that thus far, 17 countries across the region have experienced tremendous growth in EV adoption – with one outlier.
Countries like Germany, the UK, Belgium and Sweden have all seen increases of 43%, 35%, 31% and 78% respectively – a welcome increase on 2024’s ‘stall’ following a strong few years since 2021.
One country has seen a 4% overall decrease in EV adoption – France. However, this is, according to Murray, due to 2024 seeing the introduction of a year-long EV incentive scheme providing a significant increase prior to 2025, so there’s no need to panic here.
Overall, Europe has experienced a strong, steady increase across the first quarter of 2025 – with numbers set to rise as the year progresses, and, as Murray would go on to state: The EV industry is back, and it is ‘booming’.
2025 has also seen a number of landmark milestones for the sector: as of February 14 there are now 15 million EVs on the streets of Europe, with 1 million public chargepoints having been installed across the region.
But what’s spurred the growth, especially after what is referred to at several points during the talk as a ‘stalled’ period? LCP attributes it to a number of key factors, with two making the biggest case being the introduction of new, stringent CO2 limits targeting auto-OEMs accelerating the need for adoption (which would also include the ZEV Mandate in the UK), as well as the the introduction of cheaper, more versatile and family-friendly hatchback EV options (BYD Dolphin, Renault 5, Volkswagen ID.2) to the European market.
Turning to the future, statistics presented show that currently, Norway is on track to become a country with a 100% BEV adoption rate by 2035, with the Netherlands tailing at 95% and Germany at 80%. For us in the UK, our rate appears to have slowed, with 2035 expected to see a total adoption rate of 24% ZEVs – but an improvement nonetheless.
As far as the region’s charging infrastructure, the general public is expected to begin dividing their charging operations across home, public spaces and workplaces, spreading the overall energy cost (predicted to be 60 terawatts per hour in Germany, for example!) across a number of points and reducing throttle potential energy bottlenecks.
Forecasts show that the next five years are set to see yet another uptick in home chargepoint adoption, with numbers once again steadily increasing across the region. Germany in particular has seen its first year of an increase in purchases after three years of stagnant numbers due in part a previous incentive scheme in 2021 offering free chargepoint installation to anyone in the country, with a large number of houses taking the offer despite not yet owning an EV.
So, the takeaway from a very informative ten minutes? The European EV market truly is booming, and with a number of countries currently speeding toward their net-zero targets, it truly doesn’t show any sign of slowing down anytime soon.
