Electric cars and climate neutrality: limits and contradictions of the EU strategy

Or, to give a reasoned example: a comparison between the Renault Zoe, which was Europe's best-selling electric car, but went out of production - with no heir - in 2024, with 400,000 units sold, and the Clio, now in its sixth generation, with more than 17 million cars produced since 1990: not just Renault, but the best-selling French car of all time. Who remembers the former and who doesn't know the latter?

Already in the early months of 2026, the changes under discussion, on which the European Parliament and the European Council will give their opinion, should become clearer. It is also plausible that, precisely in the trialogue, the regulatory framework will continue to be subject to further adjustments.

The assessments, however, do not only concern industry, but also affect the broader European environmental strategy. As Mario Draghi also noted in his recent September speech on the state of play of competitiveness measures, the key issue remains the overall effectiveness of the policies adopted.

In order to decarbonise road transport and achieve climate neutrality by 2050, the EU has chosen to focus mainly on the gradual replacement of the vehicle fleet with new electrically driven vehicles. A strategy that has had significant effects on the supply side, but more limited results on the demand side.

The available data, at least so far, show a complex picture. Despite incentives and penalising measures for the most polluting vehicles, new electric registrations are largely adding to the existing fleet, without generating significant replacement.

The latest available Eurostat data, updated in January 2026, says that at the end of 2024 there were, yes, 5.8 million electric cars already on the road, but that is still very few compared to the more than 260 million total, whose share of endothermic cars is also growing.

On the energy consumption and emissions front, too, the transition still appears to be at an early stage. Electricity used in road transport is growing, but remains less than 1% of the total. Even considering the greater efficiency of the electric vector, the time margins for achieving a complete transformation by 2050 are particularly challenging.

These numbers - not so difficult to recover and analyse - are too little talked about, yet the next course corrections will necessarily have to take them into account.

(*) Programme director of the Sustainable Mobility research programme, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei