Sales of electric vehicles in Europe are on the rise as the Middle East war disruption in oil exports pushes retail fuel prices higher, Reuters reported today, citing data from the industry that showed demand for EVs had gone up by 34% in April.
The data comes from 16 markets, Reuters noted in its report, with the figures showing strengthening demand for electric cars in already highly pro-EV markets such as the Netherlands and Denmark, but also from markets such as Italy, where adoption has been slower to pick up.
Demand for electric vehicles is rising in the UK as well, as prices at the pump climb relentlessly amid the government’s determination not to reverse what is effectively a ban on new North Sea oil and gas production. According to the EV industry, the trend is irreversible.
“This isn’t a blip, it’s an inflection point,” said the chief executive of Octopus Energy’s electric vehicle marketing business, Octopus Electric Vehicles, as quoted by Reuters. The company saw a 95% jump in demand for new EVs last month, Gurjeet Grewal said, and an even stronger rise in demand for used electric cars, at 160% on the year.
Volvo Cars is also reporting growing interest in electric vehicles, Reuters said. “We are seeing increased customer enquiries in our fully-electric cars even in southern European markets where EV penetration is comparatively lower,” the carmaker’s chief commercial officer, Erik Severinson, said.
Registrations of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in Europe’s key automotive markets surged by 51% in March, to 224,000, according to earlier data from the automotive industry, with EV sales over the first quarter of the year also significantly higher than a year earlier, at 33.5%, as the war premium on crude oil pushed retail fuel prices uncomfortably high across Europe. All European markets saw strong increases in EV demand.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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