- Electric vehicle sales in Europe jumped by 51% in March.
- High fuel prices, new govt incentives are driving the switch.
- US EV picture is very different, sales dropping 27% in Q1.
Europe’s EV market is having a moment, and it’s in large part thanks to a man who’s no fan of clean energy. President Trump’s attack on Iran sent petrol and diesel prices soaring – and European drivers into the arms of electric cars.
New figures show battery-electric registrations surged 51 percent in March 2026 across 15 key EU + EFTA (European Free Trade Association) markets as drivers in the region battled with fuel costs that jumped by around a fifth.
Related: Ford’s EV Sales Collapsed 70% While Toyota’s Nearly Doubled
More than 224,000 electric passenger cars were registered in March alone as a result, accounting for 22 percent of all new-car sales. That means close to one in every four cars sold was an EV. Over the first quarter, more than half a million EVs were sold across the EU, up 33.5 percent year over year.
Growth was broad, too. Germany rose 42 percent year to date, helped by new state incentives and France stayed strong with a 28 percent EV share in March. Italy, long considered a reluctant adopter, jumped 65 percent. Even Poland cracked the 40 percent growth club.
Scandis Embraced EVs
Then there’s the Nordics, where normal rules don’t apply. Denmark saw fully electric cars account for 76.6 percent of March registrations. Finland was near 50 percent. Norway, naturally, continued behaving like it’s already living in 2035, with 98.4 percent of new registrations fully electric.
Now let’s cross the Atlantic, where the mood is rather different, despite pump prices also rising there. Though CarEdge reported internet searches for EVs jumped 20 percent in the first week following the original attack on Iran in early March, US EV sales in the first quarter fell 27 percent compared with the same period last year.
Tax Credit Hole
Only 216,399 EVs were sold in America between January and the end of March, that slide heavily influenced by the removal of the federal $7,500 tax credit last September, which appears to have yanked plenty of buyers back toward gasoline pumps.
Some brands still found success. Toyota rose 79 percent, Lexus jumped 207 percent, and Rivian edged upward by 21 percent. But others were hammered, with several mainstream and premium names like Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Ford, VW, Jeep and Genesis posting dramatic declines as high as 93 percent.
