EVs, Hybrids May Capture 4% of European Market by 2020

Sales of hybrids, plug-ins and electric vehicles will reach more than 827,000 units per year in Europe (4% of the total market) by the end of the decade, Pike Research LLC predicts.

Volume for such models totaled about 120,000 units in 2012, according to the Colorado-based firm.

Pike forecasts that European demand for EVs will multiply to about 400,000 units per year by 2020 from less than 25,000 units in 2012. Over the same period, sales of plug-in hybrids will surge from roughly 11,000 units to 260,000 units.

The firm expects annual sales of conventional hybrids to merely double to about 200,000 units over the same period.

The success of highly efficient diesels has damped Europe's demand hybrids, which are only marginally more efficient than conventionally powered vehicles, Pike says. It cautions that EV sales will be dictated in large part by price and development of a recharging infrastructure.

Pike predicts that by 2020 Europe's biggest markets for EVs each with more than 100,000 sales per year will be France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the U.K. The firm estimates that by then annual plug-in hybrid sales will reach those levels only in Germany, France, Italy and the U.K.