EV Progress Report 2026: Don't Stop Me Now (Transport & Environment)

Summary

• About 60 new BEV models are expected by the end of 2026, nearly 4 times the average of 15 new models per year in 2021-2025.p.2
• Carmakers have already closed 75% of the gap to their 2025–2027 CO2 target, halfway through the period.p.2
• Under the EPP/Salini proposal, BEVs would stall at 22% of the market in 2030 instead of 47%, and cumulative emissions to 2050 would be 40% higher than under current law.p.2
• Home-charged electric cars cost 50% less to run than petrol and diesel cars, and the oil price shock has cost EU road users €53bn, of which diesel accounts for €40bn.p.4
• The BEV share in January–August 2026 was 22%, up 6 percentage points, reaching 28% in August.p.6
• Sales of models with a starting price below €25,000 are set to be seven times higher in 2026 than in 2024.p.13

Key insights

1. Cars emitted more than 450 MtCO₂e in 2025, equal to 43% of the EU's transport sector emissions and 14% of total emissions.p.3
2. BEV model choice surged to over 150 as of mid 2026, with European carmakers holding nearly 60% of available models and Chinese carmakers 21%.p.8
3. 24 BEV models were priced below €30k as of H1 2026, 10 of them from European carmakers.p.15
4. BEV export volumes are expected to almost triple from 0.6 million cars in 2026 to 1.6 million cars in 2031.p.22
5. Under the EPP/Salini proposal, European OEM BEV sales would be around half of Chinese OEM BEV sales in 2035 (5.7 million vs 11.9 million).p.30
6. The proposal would increase oil imports by about 3.5 billion barrels between 2026 and 2050, an additional €288 billion in oil import expenses by 2050.p.31
7. BEV share reached 38% in France and 32% in Germany in August 2026.p.7
8. Nearly 8 million electric cars in the EU avoided 46 million barrels of oil in 2025, worth €2.9 billion.p.4