Eurostat: Growing EU trade in electric and hybrid cars

Between 2017 and 2023, European Union trade in electric and hybrid cars increased substantially, EU statistics agency Eurostat said on October 30.

In 2023, almost 43 per cent of the total number of cars imported into the EU were electric or hybrid, indicating a significant increase compared with the share observed in 2017, which was eight per cent, Eurostat said.

EU exports jumped from two per cent of the total number of cars exported in 2017 to 26 per cent of the total in 2023 (+24 pp increase).

Non-plug-in hybrid cars went from six per cent of the total EU car imports and 0.4 per cent of EU car exports in 2017 to 18 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively, in 2023.

Full electric cars represented 19 per cent (+18 percentage points (pp) compared with 2017) of EU car imports and 11 per cent of EU car exports (+10 pp) in 2023, and plug-in hybrid cars represented 6 per cent (+5 pp) of EU car imports and four per cent of EU car exports (+3 pp).

Eurostat said that when looking at all three categories (full electric, plug-in hybrid and non-plug-in hybrid) between 2022 and 2023, there was a slight change: the share of non-plug-in hybrid cars in the total number of EU trade of electric and hybrid cars decreased, with imports and exports down by 3.4 pp and 2.3 pp, after being the biggest category in 2022.

On the other hand, both imports and exports of full electric cars continued to increase (+4.3 pp and +1.6 pp, respectively).

In terms of value, in 2023, the EU spent 44.6 billion euro on imports from extra-EU countries on hybrid and electric cars, an increase of 21 per cent, compared with 2022 (36.9 billion euro).

Imports of full electric cars were worth 20.2 billion euro, followed by non-plug-in hybrid cars (15.5 billion euro) and plug-in hybrid cars (8.9 billion euro).

Exports of the same products to extra-EU countries amounted to €62.1 billion in total value, +5 per cent compared with 2022 (59.1 billion euro).

Also in exports, full electric cars ranked first in terms of value, with 29.4 billion euro, followed by non-plug-in hybrid cars with 22.5 billion euro and plug-in hybrid cars with 10.2 billion euro.

Electric cars were the largest category traded among the hybrid and electric cars in 2023, a change from 2022, when non-plug-in hybrid cars were the main category.

The top three extra-EU countries from which the EU imported electric cars were China, with 9.7 billion euro (corresponding to 48 per cent of the total imports for electric cars), followed by South Korea (4.3 billion euro) with a percentage share of 21 per cent and the United Kingdom (2.1 billion euro) with a 10 per cent share.

The top three main extra-EU countries for exports were the UK and the United States, with a 24 per cent share each (7.1 billion euro and 6.9 billion euro, respectively), followed by Norway with 11 per cent (3.1 billion euro), Eurostat said.

(Photo: Karlis Dambrans)

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