France hits 30% market share for electric cars

France smashes its electric car sales record: 30% share in June

Are we witnessing the definitive turning point for electric cars in Europe? France has just posted a spectacular June: 55,851 new electric vehicle registrations, a 30% market share compared with 17% a year earlier. Year-on-year growth is 94%, a staggering figure. The war in Iran and the resulting surge in petrol prices have done the rest: French drivers are switching to plug-in vehicles at a pace that neither subsidies nor regulations had managed to achieve so far.

But it's not all applause. Some see these figures as a bubble fuelled by public subsidies designed to hold back Chinese manufacturers. The argument is that the market is not organic: without the state's generous grants and without the spike in fuel prices, demand would deflate. Moreover, dependence on Chinese batteries and components remains total, calling European industrial autonomy into question. Others, however, celebrate it as a climate victory and a sign that the transition is moving faster than expected, reducing dependence on oil from regimes such as Russia's.

The truth is that, month after month, petrol stations are losing customers across the old continent. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on each person's ideological lens. But the numbers are stubborn: one in three new cars sold in France is now electric. Meanwhile, in Spain we barely reach a third of that share, and the debate is intensifying between those waiting for the electric bubble to burst and those already calculating when they'll stop queuing at the petrol station.