Eurostat: EU trade in electric and hybrid cars up in 2025

In 2025, the EU imported 45.1 billion euro of hybrid and electric cars, a four per cent increase compared with 2024 (43.4 billion euro), EU statistics agency Eurostat said on October 13.

Exports rose to 64.7 billion euro, up 10 per cent compared with 2024 (58.7 billion euro), Eurostat said.

Overall, there has been a significant increase in this trade since 2017, when the share of electric and hybrid cars accounted for only 10 per cent of total car imports and three per cent of total car exports, respectively, the statistics agency said.

The share of full electric cars in 2025 was 20 per cent for EU car imports and 18 per cent for exports (0.8 per cent and 1.1 per cent in 2017).

Plug-in hybrid cars represented 17 per cent of car imports and nine per cent of car exports (1.2 per cent and 1.8 per cent in 2017), and the share of non-plug-in hybrid cars was 23 per cent for imports and 14 per cent for exports (eight per cent and 0.3 per cent in 2017). 

Out of the 12.6 million cars, produced in the EU in 2025, almost 40 per cent were hybrid or electric cars (4.8 million), which represents an increase of almost a million compared with 2024 (3.9 million), Eurostat said.

In 2025, 17 per cent of the cars produced in the EU were electric, seven per cent were plug-in hybrids and 14 per cent non-plug-in hybrids.

In terms of production value of electric and hybrid cars, the production was worth 139 billion euro in 2025, compared with €123 billion in the previous year. 

Among electric and hybrid cars, electric cars had the highest value at 68 billion euro (compared with 58 billion euro in 2024), followed by non-plug-in hybrid cars at 38 billion euro (also 38 billion euro in 2024) and plug-in hybrid cars at 33 billion euro (up from 27 billion euro).

This was equal to a share in value of the total EU production of 21 per cent for electric cars, 12 per cent and 10 per cent for non-plug-in hybrid cars and plug-in hybrid cars, respectively.

China was the top EU import partner, with 42 per cent of all electric car imports, followed by South Korea (27 per cent) and Japan (nine per cent).

The top three export partners for electric cars were the United Kingdom (35 per cent), the United States and Norway (both 14 per cent), Eurostat said.

(Photo: Karlis Dambrans)