Europe’s EV share hit 25% in July as sales jumped 51%

Electric cars took a 25% share of European registrations in July, with sales up 51% year on year against 4.1% growth for the market as a whole. Chinese brands took 34% of plug-in hybrid sales, a segment EU countervailing duties do not currently cover.

Electric cars have stopped being a minority interest in Europe. Registrations rose 51% in July against the same month last year, taking a 25% share of the market, according to Dataforce figures covering 98% of new registrations across the EU, UK, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.

Electric is now carrying the industry. The whole European market grew 4.1% in July and 5.7% across seven months, while EV sales rose 37% over the same period, after a fifth of EU registrations went electric in the first half.

The volume behind the percentage is 277,006 cars. That is a single month, in a region that was arguing about range anxiety three years ago.

Two markets are doing the heavy lifting. France reached a 35% electric share on more than 44,000 registrations, and Germany 29.3% on nearly 79,000.

The July bestseller list is European. The Skoda Elroq came first, followed by the Volkswagen ID.4 and the Renault 5 E-Tech, in the window Tesla’s slump opened.

Across the year Tesla is still ahead. The Model Y leads on 115,759 registrations, up 55%, with the Elroq second on 67,679 and the Model 3 third on 57,086.

The plug-in hybrid market is a different country. PHEV sales rose 15% to 125,530 in July, and Chinese brands took 34% of them.

They also took most of the top of the table. The BYD Seal U was July’s best seller, the BYD Atto 2 second and the Jaecoo 7 fourth, and the year-to-date podium is entirely Chinese.

The explanation is a gap in the tariffs. EU countervailing duties reach battery-electric cars built in China, at rates running to 45.3% for SAIC, and they do not reach plug-in hybrids, which is why Volkswagen asked for protection.

That gap is closing. The Commission moved in June to extend duties to Chinese plug-in hybrids, having denied any such plan in January, with rates expected to land below the battery-electric levels because batteries are a smaller share of a hybrid’s value.

So July is the last clean photograph of the loophole. A quarter of Europe’s new cars are electric, and the fastest-growing slice of everything else is being built somewhere the tariffs have not yet arrived.