Europe’s car market returned to growth in February, led by electric cars
After a slight stumble in January, the European Union’s car market moved back into positive territory in February. Registrations of new passenger cars reached 865,437, up 1.4 per cent on the same month last year. The broader picture still is not quite in the green, though, because across the first two months of the year the market remains 1.2 per cent down on 2025.
Battery electric cars did most of the heavy lifting. Their sales rose by 20.6 per cent in February, lifting their share of the EU new car market to 18.8 per cent. Hybrids and plug in hybrids also continued to gain ground, while petrol and diesel models kept sliding towards the margins. Combined, the two accounted for just 30.6 per cent of total sales in February.
Among the bloc’s biggest markets, the picture was anything but uniform. New car sales rose by 3.8 per cent in Germany, by 14 per cent in Italy and by 7.5 per cent in Spain. France went the other way entirely, with registrations falling 14.7 per cent. It is a neat reminder that Europe’s car market is not moving to a single rhythm at the moment. Each major country is still playing its own game.
Taken as a whole, February gave the European car market a firmer look than the year’s opening month. The main conclusion remains the familiar one: electrified models are taking an ever larger share of the market, while traditional internal combustion cars are slipping, step by step, into the background.
