Persistent supply chain bottlenecks leading to order delays and related disruptions, geopolitical tensions, weak consumer sentiment, and general economic uncertainty continued to constrain demand for cars in the EU in the first half of 2025. However, the most recent data for September 2025 showed that sales of passenger cars in the EU have finally started to grow. By September, the number of registrations since the beginning of the year was 0.9 percent higher than in the same period of the previous year, marking the third consecutive month of positive growth.
This improvement can be partly explained by the introduction of new car models: in September alone, a strong 10% increase in sales was recorded. Battery-powered electric vehicles accounted for 16.1 percent of total registrations in the first nine months of the year, although that share still lags behind the trajectory needed to achieve a phase-out of gasoline-powered vehicle sales in 2035.
The forecast for 2025 was revised down to 3.8 percent, compared with previous expectations for a 4.2 percent reduction.
