September 2026: one in three new cars sold in Europe's big markets was electric. Romania stayed at 8%
Preliminary Dataforce figures for 12 major European markets put the battery-electric share at 33%, with registrations up 62%. France reached 42%, the Netherlands 53%, and Romania about 8%.
September was the best month yet for electric cars in Europe. According to preliminary figures from analytics firm Dataforce, cited by Automotive News Europe and Profit.ro, battery-electric registrations across 12 major European markets rose 62% compared with September 2025. Their share climbed to 33%, from 22% a year ago. In practice, one in three new cars was fully electric.
The figure doesn't cover the whole EU. ACEA will publish the total for the EU, EFTA and the UK toward the end of October.
Country by country
Official figures already published by national registries confirm the trend:
| Country | BEV share, September 2026 | A year earlier |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | 52.8% | 37.5% |
| Belgium | about 51% | – |
| Sweden | 49% | 38% |
| France | 42% (65,243 cars) | 22% |
| Germany | 34.5% (88,599 cars) | 19% |
| United Kingdom | 28.3% (99,201 cars, a record) | 23.3% |
| Spain | about 18.5% | 12% |
| Italy | 7.6% | – |
In France, EV registrations rose 108%, driven by social leasing and bonuses funded through energy-savings certificates. In Germany, the number of new EVs almost doubled. Analysts credit record fuel prices and increasingly affordable electric models under €25,000, such as the Renault 5 and the new Twingo.
The Nordic countries remain in a different league: Norway reached 98.8% and Denmark 88.8%.
And Romania?
The picture here is different. According to DGPCI data processed by APIA, 869 new electric cars were registered in September, 16% more than a year earlier, out of a total market of 10,952 new cars, down 11%. That's a share of about 8%, less than a quarter of the big European markets' average and close to Italy.
For the first nine months, ACAROM counts 7,889 new EVs, up 45.4% on the same period of 2025, which is also around 8% of the market.
