In 2023, the European Union registered 1.5 million new battery-electric passenger cars. This brings their total number up to 4.5 million, but they still only make up 1.7 percent of all cars in the EU. “It’s clear that the popularization of battery cars will not happen as quickly as it seemed a few years ago. The main problem concerns the price of the vehicles”, says prof. dr. hab. Wojciech Paprocki from the Warsaw School of Economics. This could imply a need to revise the EU’s plans for transport electrification.
“The fact that in Europe an administrative decision was made to set a date for ending the admission of new combustion-engine vehicles is seen as a marker of the era of electromobility and its absolute popularization. We can see, however, that consumer sentiment is not as strong as initially expected. I am in favor of the view that the EU authorities will probably have to modify their decisions, because it is not in the interest of consumers or the automotive industry to implement such an ambitious plan in the set timeframe”, says prof. Wojciech Paprocki to the Newseria Biznes agency.
According to the plans of the European Commission, by 2035 all new cars should be zero-emission. Road transport is responsible for 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from transport in the EU. Strict CO2 emission standards for new cars are intended to reduce emissions, helping Europe achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
Figures from Eurostat show that in 2023, 1.5 million new battery-electric passenger cars were registered in the EU, bringing their total number up to 4.5 million.
“However, the future is not quite clear. We can see that the popularization of battery cars will not happen as quickly as it seemed a few years ago, at least not in Europe. Whether the battery car will be the dominant type of vehicle in individual motoring, and also in commercial transport, is still unknown”, says the transport expert. “There are many reservations about the environmental effects of using battery vehicles, especially when it comes to their disposal and recycling. Currently, work is being done on alternative solutions, such as hydrogen propulsion, or the use of so-called synthetic fuels, which could be considered zero-emission throughout their entire lifecycle.”
According to the research company SNE Research, in 2023, less than 14.5 thousand vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells (FCEV) were sold worldwide. That’s 30.2 percent less than in 2022, sales have fallen even compared to 2021. The main problems with using hydrogen are significant energy losses compared to, for example, electric drives, which translates into higher costs, a high price of hydrogen and its availability. There is also a lack of refueling stations. Meanwhile, synthetic fuels are likely to become an alternative to electric vehicles only in a few decades. An analysis carried out by the non-governmental organization Transport & Environment (T&E) showed that by 2035, there will only be enough synthetic fuels for about 2 percent of cars in Europe.
Therefore, electric cars are still far more common than other low-emission vehicles, but the number of new electric cars is growing more slowly than expected a few years ago. Even though the share of battery-electric cars in new registrations reached 14.6 percent last year, electric cars still account for only 1.7 percent of vehicles throughout the Union, with clear differences between member countries.
“The main problem is the price of these vehicles. European manufacturers, somewhat imitating Tesla, an American manufacturer, have focused on vehicles with very high driving and traveling comfort, of course with the advantage of a zero-emission battery vehicle. But it turned out that the average consumer in Europe does not have such a budget to buy top-shelf cars. However, the offer of both European and other manufacturers, except for the Chinese, who have relatively cheap, smaller electric cars, was limited for many years to premium cars”, analyzes prof. Wojciech Paprocki.
Analysis carried out by the non-governmental organization Transport & Environment, based on Syndex consulting company’s analysis, shows that price is the biggest obstacle in buying an electric car. In Europe, the average price of a battery-electric vehicle increased by 39 percent (+18 thousand euros) between 2015 and 2023, while in China it decreased by 53 percent. T&E’s analysis indicates that this is due to European manufacturers disproportionately focusing on large cars and SUVs, which have a higher price. Only 17 percent of sold electric cars belong to the B-segment, which is more affordable. In the segment of combustion engine cars, this percentage is 37 percent. Conversely, in the D-segment the proportions are reversed – 28 percent for electric cars and 13 percent for combustion engine cars.
“Currently, the first cheaper electric cars have started to appear, but these budget vehicles have a range of a maximum of 200 km. This discourages purchases in those households where there is one car, which is used daily for local commutes, but also has to serve for vacations and ski trips. This makes the electric car seen as not quite fitting the needs”, explains the expert from the Warsaw School of Economics.
Data on new car registrations show an increasing interest in hybrid cars. The European Association of Automobile Manufacturers reports that in June, cars with such engines accounted for 30 percent of registrations in the EU, and their share is rapidly growing. A survey conducted by PBS on behalf of Automarket.pl shows that in Poland 33 percent of respondents are interested in a hybrid over the next five years. For comparison, 8 percent pointed to electric cars. Nearly three-quarters of respondents appreciate the low fuel consumption of hybrid cars.
“If we were to assess the behavior of manufacturers, Toyota has the most stable strategy. From the very beginning, they chose hybrid cars among all solutions, which are much less emissive than traditional cars with gasoline or diesel engines. Other manufacturers, except for Tesla, who focused only on one solution, stayed with gasoline cars for a long time, and then wanted to leap to battery cars. They didn’t take the hybrid path, which they are now trying to catch up”, says prof. dr. hab. Wojciech Paprocki.
