The European Union passed a significant milestone (kilometrestone?) in the third quarter of 2026 – electric sales have overtaken pure petrol numbers in the year to date. 

The numbers have been crunched by independent NGO the European Federation for Transport and Environment (or T&E for short), which lobbies for cleaner transport. 

T&E says that EV market share across the whole of the European Union was 22.7% in nine months to the end of September, compared with 21.2% for petrol sales. 

It must be noted that hybrid sales have the largest slice of the market, with 36.3% of cars sold in the bloc featuring electrical assistance. 

The EU’s tariffs on Chinese plug-in hybrid cars are clearly having an effect – just 10.1% of cars sold in the region so far this year were PHEVs, compared with 14.1% in the UK. 

British drivers are still buying pure petrol cars in much higher numbers than their EU counterparts, representing 41.5% of cars sold in the UK so far in 2026. Just 13.8% of cars were hybrids, a decrease on the previous year’s numbers. 

The UK’s 26.2% market share for electric cars is higher than the EU average, but sits in the middle of the pack when you look at individual countries. Denmark has the highest share in the EU with 81.7%, while France and Germany have EV shares over 30% and 27% respectively. 

There are 13 EU member states that have achieved a record EV volume in the third quarter of the year, and 11 countries where electric cars outsold petrol ones during the period, including France, Germany and Ireland. 

According to the T&E numbers there are over 262.4 million cars registered in the European Union, of which 7.6 million are electric – just under 3% of the cars on the road.