Market evolution: Electric cars (CN 870380) — 2015–2025

Introduction

This report examines the evolution of EU trade in fully electric passenger vehicles (customs code CN 870380) over the period 2017–2025. The data covers trade between the EU and non-EU countries, disaggregated by partner, EU member state, and product sub-segment (new vs. used vehicles).

The period under review coincides with the mainstream adoption of battery-electric vehicles across Europe, driven by tightening CO₂ emission standards, national purchase incentives, expanding charging infrastructure, and a rapidly maturing supply chain. What emerges from the data is a story of exponential growth — with EU trade values increasing roughly fifteen- to thirty-fold — accompanied by profound shifts in the geographical composition of trade, a structural narrowing of the EU's trade surplus, and the rapid scaling of domestic production.

The analysis is structured in three main sections. The first examines the macro-level expansion of trade volumes and values, and the evolution of the EU's trade balance. The second focuses on the geographical reconfiguration of trade partners, with particular attention to China's dramatic rise and subsequent partial retrenchment. The third considers industrial production within the EU, price dynamics, and the emerging geography of member-state specialisation.

1. An Order-of-Magnitude Expansion Anchored by a Persistent EU Surplus

Both imports and exports grew by more than a factor of ten

The EU's external trade in electric cars expanded dramatically between 2017 and 2025. Overview data show that EU exports rose from €1.62 billion in 2017 to €28.56 billion in 2025 (+1,664%), while imports grew even faster, from €455 million to €14.95 billion (+3,185%). In vehicle counts (supplementary units), exports expanded from approximately 56,000 to 783,000 units, and imports from roughly 41,000 to 789,000 units.

Growth was broadly continuous but accelerated sharply from 2020 onward, driven by expanding model availability, policy incentives, and falling battery costs. The peak year for both flows was 2023, when exports reached €30.75 billion and imports €22.70 billion.

The EU maintained a surplus throughout — except briefly in 2019

Despite the faster growth rate of imports, the EU remained a net exporter of electric cars for most of the period. The trade surplus widened from €1.16 billion in 2017 to a peak of €13.61 billion in 2025. However, the data reveal a striking anomaly in 2019: for the first and only time in the series, the EU recorded a trade deficit of approximately €354 million. This coincided with a near-fivefold surge in import values (from €1.25 billion in 2018 to €4.96 billion in 2019), driven primarily by the ramp-up of Korean and Chinese supply to the EU market.

The net import reliance indicator — which stood at −76.3% in 2017 (indicating a strong net export position) — reached a maximum of +4.7% before settling at −21.9% in 2025. While the EU remains a net exporter, the structural decline in this indicator signals that imports are gaining share of the domestic market, reflecting both rising demand and the increasing competitiveness of non-EU producers.

Vehicle counts converged, signalling a maturing market

A revealing measure of market evolution is the comparison of vehicle flows in each direction. In 2017, the EU exported 56,421 electric vehicles and imported 40,615 — a comfortable surplus of nearly 16,000 units. By 2023, imports (846,845 vehicles) actually exceeded exports (666,493 vehicles) by roughly 180,000 units. By 2025, the two flows had nearly converged, with imports at 789,177 and exports at 783,263 — a difference of fewer than 6,000 vehicles. This convergence suggests that the EU's domestic market is absorbing an increasing share of both production and imports, as electric vehicles move from niche to mass-market status.

2. China's Dramatic Rise and the Diversification of EU Export Markets

China transformed from a marginal supplier to the EU's largest import source

The most dramatic structural shift in EU electric car trade was the emergence of China as the dominant supplier. In 2017, China exported just €11.2 million worth of electric cars to the EU — less than 2.5% of total EU imports. By the 2023 peak, this had surged to €11.0 billion, representing nearly half of all EU electric car imports.

China's growth rate of 56,774% over the period is extraordinary. The surge was concentrated between 2018 and 2023, driven by the expansion of Chinese manufacturers (such as BYD, MG/SAIC, and others) as well as European and American brands manufacturing in Chinese factories for export.

However, the data also show a significant retrenchment: Chinese imports fell from the €11.0 billion peak to €6.4 billion in 2025 — a decline of 42%. This likely reflects the European Commission's anti-subsidy investigation initiated in late 2023 and the provisional countervailing duties applied to Chinese EVs from mid-2024 onward.

Korea, the EU's second-largest supplier, saw its imports peak at €4.4 billion before settling at €4.1 billion in 2025. The United States and the United Kingdom both showed declines from their respective peaks (€3.0 billion and €2.5 billion), with 2025 values at €1.2 billion and €1.1 billion. Morocco and Mexico, though starting from very low bases, emerged as notable new suppliers.

The concentration of imports by value (Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) peaked at 4,609 before declining to 2,770 in 2025, indicating a partial diversification of suppliers as tariff measures reduced Chinese dominance.

EU export markets broadened substantially, led by the United Kingdom

On the export side, the geographical diversification of EU electric car exports was even more pronounced.

The United Kingdom emerged as the single largest destination, growing from €498 million in 2017 to €10.04 billion in 2025 and consistently accounting for roughly one-third of EU exports. Norway — an early EV adopter with strong policy incentives — was already the EU's second-largest export market in 2017 and remained a major destination. Türkiye experienced the fastest growth (+33,610%), rising from virtually nothing to €3.56 billion, reflecting both geographical proximity and rising demand. The United States showed strong but volatile growth, peaking at €7.5 billion in 2023 before declining to €4.0 billion in 2025.

Export concentration (HHI) declined from 2,536 to 1,850 (−27%), confirming that EU exporters successfully diversified their customer base.

Supply shocks centred on the China import relationship

The volatility analysis reveals that the most significant supply shocks in EU electric car trade were associated with the China import relationship. A major price shock was detected centred on 2019, with an abnormality score of 25.4 and a price shift of +252%, accounting for 49.6% of import value. This coincided with the initial wave of large-scale Chinese EV exports entering the EU market, marking the point at which Chinese supply fundamentally reshaped the import landscape.

On the export side, a notable price shock was detected in the US relationship centred on 2020 (abnormality 11.3, shift +24.3%, value share 25.6%), likely reflecting pandemic-related disruptions. Among import partners, Mexico (CV 1.25) and India (CV 2.76) showed the highest volatility, indicating more unstable and less established supply relationships. On the export side, Türkiye (CV 1.57) and Australia (CV 1.18) were the most volatile destinations.

3. Industrial Scaling, Price Polarisation, and the Geography of EU Specialisation

EU production scaled by a factor of seventeen

The production data reveal a transformation in the EU's own electric car manufacturing capacity. Production volumes grew from approximately 100,000 vehicles in 2017 to nearly 1.70 million in 2025 (+1,597%), while production value rose from €2.44 billion to €59.20 billion (+2,325%). The faster growth of value relative to volume indicates that the average value per vehicle produced also increased substantially — from approximately €24,400 to €34,900 per unit — reflecting model mix shifts toward higher-value vehicles and general price inflation in the automotive sector.

This ramp-up placed the EU among the world's largest producers of electric vehicles, though the data also show that a growing share of domestic demand was met by imports, particularly from 2019 onward.

EU exports command a substantial and persistent price premium

A consistent structural feature of the data is that EU electric car exports are priced significantly higher than imports, whether measured per tonne or per vehicle. For new vehicles (subheading 87038010), the supplementary unit price (EUR per vehicle) reveals a persistent gap:

(New vehicles only — CN 87038010)

EU exports consistently commanded 1.5× to 2.6× the price of imports on a per-vehicle basis. This gap reflects the fact that EU exports are dominated by premium and upper-range models produced by German and other European manufacturers, while imports — particularly from China and Korea — tend to target more affordable market segments.

Both export and import prices peaked in 2022 (at €47,595 and €26,005 per vehicle respectively) before declining through 2025. Export prices fell by 21% from peak; import prices fell by 22%. The price compression on the import side may reflect aggressive pricing strategies by Chinese manufacturers seeking to build market share, while the decline in export prices likely reflects intensifying competition and model mix normalisation.

The used vehicle segment (CN 87038090) remains small — accounting for less than 3% of total trade value — but grew significantly, particularly on the import side. Used vehicle imports surged from 2,030 units in 2017 to 58,821 units in 2025, possibly reflecting the emergence of a secondary market for electric vehicles.

Germany, Belgium, and Czechia anchor EU electric car production

The specialisation analysis for 2025 reveals a clear geography of electric car production within the EU:

Germany is the dominant force, accounting for 42.8% of EU electric car production and 21.2% of extra-EU exports (valued at €17.50 billion in 2025). Belgium is the second-largest producer (21.1% of production) and a major exporter, benefiting from its port infrastructure and the presence of major assembly plants. Czechia, Slovakia, and Slovenia all show revealed comparative advantage (RCA above 1), indicating that Central European member states are increasingly integrated into the electric vehicle supply chain — a continuation of their traditional role as automotive manufacturing hubs.

At the other end of the spectrum, Ireland (RSCA −0.98), Greece (−0.97), Portugal (−0.96), Lithuania (−0.93), and Finland (−0.89) show near-zero specialisation in electric car production, consistent with their limited automotive manufacturing bases.

On the import side, Belgium (€5.41 billion) and Germany (€2.80 billion) are also the largest importers, reflecting their roles as logistics hubs and large consumer markets respectively. Spain (€1.65 billion), the Netherlands (€1.02 billion), Sweden (€579 million), France (€539 million), and Slovenia (€661 million) round out the top seven importing member states.

Conclusion

The EU's trade in electric cars (CN 870380) underwent a transformative expansion between 2017 and 2025. Trade values grew by more than an order of magnitude in both directions, and EU domestic production scaled from approximately 100,000 to nearly 1.7 million vehicles. Throughout the period, the EU maintained a trade surplus — peaking at €13.6 billion in 2025 — though imports grew faster and briefly exceeded exports in value in 2019, signalling the growing competitiveness of non-EU suppliers.

The most consequential structural shift was the rise of China as the EU's dominant electric car supplier, accounting for nearly half of import value at its 2023 peak before retreating under the weight of EU anti-subsidy measures. At the same time, EU exporters successfully diversified their markets, with the United Kingdom, Türkiye, and Canada emerging as major growth destinations alongside the established markets of Norway and Switzerland.

Price data reveal a persistent gap between the premium positioning of EU exports and the more affordable positioning of imports, though both segments experienced notable price compression from 2022 onward. Within the EU, Germany anchors the production landscape with 43% of output, supported by Belgium and Central European member states that are increasingly specialised in electric vehicle manufacturing.

Looking ahead, the key dynamics to watch include the long-term impact of EU tariff policy on Chinese imports, the pace of EU production capacity expansion, the evolution of price competition as the market matures, and the potential for further shifts in global supply chains as trade policy uncertainty persists.