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Which countries in Europe have the most EV drivers?

A major study has ranked every European nation in terms of how many electric vehicles are on the roads. 

satellite photo of islands

The research by electronic registration portal Vignettecroatia.com used numbers from a Eurostat 2022 data set. Overall, Norway was home to the highest percentage of EV drivers, with 20.12% of all registered vehicles now a plug-in model. This is equivalent to 607,516 vehicles. 

The United Kingdom ranked tenth across the continent, where 1.93% of vehicles are now electric. In terms of numbers, that works out as 620,632. Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany round out the top 10. 

‘While electric cars are more common and affordable than ever, they still are an expensive purchase at a minimum for a lot of Europe,’ said Luka Stojčević. ‘Even some of Europe’s highest income countries, as seen in this list, still see electric vehicles as a rarity compared to other fuel types. However, as technology improves and overall production becomes cheaper, we can expect this list to shuffle around as more countries buy into the market.

In other EV news, a recent analysis ranked the UK regions switching to plug-in models the fastest. When looking at combined and local authorities, it was found that Greater Manchester had seen the fastest increase in electronic vehicle ownership between 2009 and 2023.

You can find a full breakdown of the top 10 European countries for EV registrations below:

Rank Country Total registered vehicles 2022 Total registered electric vehicles 2022 Percentage of electric vehicles
1 Norway 3,018,728 607,516 20.12%
2 Denmark 2,801,076 112,674 4.02%
3 Sweden 4,979,761 197,709 3.97%
4 Netherlands 8,917,107 330,113 3.70%
5 Luxembourg 444,818 13,909 3.13%
6 Liechtenstein 30,659 950 3.10%
7 Switzerland 4,812,896 110,788 2.30%
8 Austria 5,150,890 110,225 2.14%
9 Germany 48,763,036 1,013,009 2.08%
10 United Kingdom 32,169,932 620,632 1.93%

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Image: USGS