EU electric, hybrid car trade grows in 2025

The European Union's electric and hybrid car trade saw notable growth in 2025, while these vehicles accounted for nearly 40% of the bloc's overall auto production.

The EU imported €45.1 billion ($50.44 billion) worth of hybrid and electric cars in 2025, marking a 4% increase from €43.4 billion in 2024.

Exports grew to €64.7 billion, up 10% compared with €58.7 billion in the previous year.

Overall, this trade saw a significant increase since 2017, when the share of electric and hybrid cars accounted for only 10% of total car imports and 3% of total car exports.

The share of full electric cars in 2025 stood at 20% for EU car imports and 18% for exports, up from 0.8% and 1.1% in 2017, respectively.

Plug-in hybrid cars represented 17% of car imports and 9% of car exports, while the share of non-plug-in hybrid cars was 23% for imports and 14% for exports.

Out of the 12.6 million cars produced in the EU in 2025, nearly 40%, or 4.8 million, were hybrid or electric cars, representing an increase of almost one million units compared with 3.9 million in 2024.

Last year, 17% of the cars produced in the EU were electric, 7% were plug-in hybrids, and 14% were non-plug-in hybrids.

The production value of electric and hybrid cars reached €139 billion in 2025, up from €123 billion in the previous year.

Among these vehicles, electric cars held the highest value at €68 billion, followed by non-plug-in hybrid cars at €38 billion and plug-in hybrid cars at €33 billion.

This equaled a value share of the total EU production of 21% for electric cars, 12% for non-plug-in hybrid cars, and 10% for plug-in hybrid cars.

China was the top EU import partner, accounting for 42% of all electric car imports, followed by South Korea with 27% and Japan with 9%.

The top three export partners for electric cars were the UK with 35%, and the US and Norway with 14% each.