Beyond major cities: analysis of electric passenger car uptake in European rural regions
In Europe, new electric passenger car registrations by total numbers, shares, and on a per capita basis were highest in urban and intermediate regions in 2019. However, rural regions offer great potential to electrify the motorized car fleet. This paper focuses on new electric passenger car registrations in rural regions and analyzes policies in leading rural electric passenger car markets that may have driven the uptake. Several rural regions with high electric passenger car shares have set a 100% electric vehicle stock target, an important step to spur electric vehicle policy measures. All national or regional governments of the nine leading rural electric vehicle markets analyzed provide purchase incentives, tax breaks on registration and for owning a car, or a combination.
