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Denmark: EVs Make Up 97% of New Private Car Sales in July
- langfo 2mo agoHas the EV charging infrastructure kept pace with the EV adoption?
- hdgvhicv 2mo agoMost people charge EVs at home most of the time.
- usrnm 2mo agoIn Europe? A lot of people live in apartment buildings
- adrianN 2mo agoEV adoption is not uniformly distributed among the population.
- mschild 2mo agoPlus neither is house ownership. I'd say there is a decent correlation between apartment living vs house and the access to public transport. At least in Europe.
- sgt 2mo agoNot in Norway. Most people live in actual houses, whether they are detached and freestanding or attached, you still have a place for your car and therefore the opportunity install a charger.
- porridgeraisin 2mo agoThe ground floor of apartment buildings in my country (not europe, india) is almost always reserved for parking. It is mandated though not uniformly followed in my city that there be 18 parking spots for my 8 house building. We follow it, and found it really easy to install EV charging ports for each one.
- Symbiote 2mo agoI don't own a car myself, but there are public EV charging points opposite my apartment in Denmark, and some in the (small) private underground parking garage. I have rented the pay-per-minute electric cars a few times, and have always found it easy to get a discount on the next journey by leaving it plugged into a charger. This says there are over 50,000 charging points: https://eletric-vehicles.com/general/denmarks-public-ev-charging-network-reaches-50000-points/ https://eletric-vehicles.com/general/denmarks-public-ev-char...
- ffyring 2mo agoAt least in the apartments I have been living in the last couple of years you can always choose to have a charger. For older buildings in e.g. Stockholm city center there could be a lack of available parking spaces in the building.
- Markoff 2mo agoroughly 47% Danish population lives in multi-dwelling apartment blocks (53% in house properties) in Norway its roughly 25% (apartments) vs 75% (houses)
- tencentshill 2mo agoThe car sits somewhere overnight. Put a charger there.
- Markoff 2mo agonot viable solution for people in apartments, most of the cars in Prague sits on the street next to curb without any chargers nearby, I don't think there is any country which would have chargers for every car parked on street, it's always shared charger for MANY cars, which works when there are only very few EVs like right now, but once you reach certain point the only realistic solution are expensive fast chargers (which are inconvenient anyway, since it still takes much more time to refill energy for same range as ICE in same amount of time)
- tencentshill 2mo agoIn the city it's even easier. You have lamps and shops powered with 240V power on the streetside. Wires and conduit running under every street. The power infrastructure is already there. It would be like adding the power demand of a busy restaurant that uses electric stoves to each street, hardly impossible.
- jwr 2mo agoNo. And it's not the number of charging stations, it's the general shittiness of those. You never know how much you will pay per kWh, there are apps, networks, roaming agreements, cards, getting through this mess and starting to charge is always a challenge and takes a significant time (sometimes comparable to charging time!). You also get gouged on pricing, companies clearly set it so that the cost of 100km is comparable to that of a gas-powered vehicle. And for some reason people think EVs can only charge by backing into a stall, never in a drive-through bay like gasoline vehicles. I own an EV and enjoy it a lot. I would not even consider buying a gas vehicle again. But while charging at home is great, charging during a trip is annoying. This needs regulation.
- Buttons840 2mo agoAre charging stations subsidized? That could be a good excuse to add regulations. I've heard the subsidies are the reason why there's so many shitty charging stations. People build them, collect the subsidies, and never actually care about running it well. A silver lining is at least the space is reserved once we decide to get serious about fixing this as a society.
- mschild 2mo agoCharging stations just need to function like regular gas stations. Prices need to be made available online and prominently displayed at the entrance of the station. They shouldn't allow cheaper prices for subscriptions or even blocking any access without one.
- LtWorf 2mo agoGas stations do have cheaper prices for subscriptions often.
- mschild 2mo agoDepends on country I suppose. The main complaint from me is the difference in price and subscription requirement to even be able to use some of them though. Subscriptions from major charging providers can easily run 15 Euros a month and for that you get electricity for up to 50% cheaper per kWh. There are also a lot of providers that you simply cannot charge with unless you are subscribed. Payment is only possible through their app or they send you a physical rfid token that's linked to your account. In my town (200k inhabitants) roughly 40% of stations require you to sign up with the provider first before being able to use it.
- capitol_ 2mo agoAt least here in Norway it has, it seems like it's not very difficult to put some cables in the ground and install a big pre built metal box :) Most gas stations have them and there is also a lot of street charging stations. But it's still cheapest to charge at home.
- postepowanieadm 2mo agoIt's much harder to make a magic juice that moves though the cables and boxes ;)
- somethingweird 2mo agoIs it really that much harder than making the magic juice that legacy cars run on? By now it is cheaper and less reliant on despots all over the world to get electricity than fuel in most of Europe I assume. Electricity is a great interface as well given the actual source of energy doesn't matter as much and is interchangeable.
- hvb2 2mo ago> it's not very difficult to put some cables in the ground and install a big pre built metal box :) But increasingly it's becoming a problem that those cables have nowhere to run to as the grid isn't capable of serving them all. There might be excess generation but unless you have the capacity in the wires to get it where it's needed you're still stuck. Especially in dense old cuties where the grid was built when the goal was to power a bunch of incandescent light bulbs. Not all the appliances we have today let alone cars with a battery capacity equal to a household's weekly usage of electricity when the grid was designed.
- adrianN 2mo agoThe problem can be alleviated with more chargers. If every parking spot had a charger you could slow-charge with much lower pressure on the grid. 2kW over night are plenty for most people’s driving needs.
- IcePic 2mo agoIn Sweden it has. When I got my EV 4 years ago, the list of public EV charging locations was about the same as the amount of petrol stations, now its 3-4x as many. And as others have mentioned, having a wall charger of your own is of course the easiest and cheapest, but fearing long distance travels with EVs in Europe is not a thing, I think.
- LtWorf 2mo agoTry driving 1300km in a day… When I was a kid that's how our family vacations started.
- defrost 2mo agoBear in mind relatively few people globally did that. We're all special, each in our own unique way.
- jankeymeulen 2mo agoA decent EV will let you do 300km at highway speed. Starting at 100% at home, that's 4 times a 45 minutes break every 2.5 hours, which is a good idea anyway.
- jillesvangurp 2mo agoThere are 50K public chargers in Denmark. 7K of which are fast chargers. There's no shortage of public chargers and more are deployed as demand is increasing. Also, Denmark is a small country. Most return trips inside the country would be doable on a single charge if you have one of the newer longer range vehicles. Copenhagen to Aarhus is only 300km or so. You could do that without charging in a new BMW. Mostly people charge at home or at one of those tens of thousands of roadside chargers in their neighborhood. And of course Denmark pioneered a lot of wind technology. The country is running on cheap wind power at this point and you can get really favorable rates off peak hours.
- thrownawaysz 2mo agoIn another news the sales of +10 years old diesel cars are not dropping in Romania and Bulgaria and Hungary and the Balkan countries
- adrianN 2mo agoThe supply of 10+ year old EVs is rather limited, so that is not a very surprising fact.
- seydor 2mo agoChinese EVs are making rapid inroads in the balkans, lots of new brands
- stavros 2mo agoTrue, I see lots of Teslas and BYDs here in Greece (and own a BYD). Wouldn't go back to ICE.
- Symbiote 2mo agoNew diesel vehicles are 6.4% of sales in Romania, 15.4% in Bulgaria, 9.5% in Hungary, 12.2% in Croatia. That's a drop except in Bulgaria, where it's the same as last year. And if those 10+ year old diesels are replacing 15, 20+ year old diesels it's still an improvement. https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations-5-7-in-h1-2026-battery-electric-20-7-market-share/ https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...
- wood_spirit 2mo agoIt is interesting that the big selling brands are Skoda (VW group) and VW itself, then a resurgent Tesla in third place. These are companies that are claiming hardship from Chinese EV imports and VW is planning to lay off 100K employees.
- ExxKA 2mo agoDenmark is right next to Germany, so has a high affinity for German car brands. Even with worse specs than the chinese imports, the danes feel the german brands are a higher quality a more stable producer who will be there for the long run, so service and guarantees can be trusted.
- ktallett 2mo agoOverall all long-term tests suggest they are correct and they are higher quality. They are less flashy but build is better.
- reacharavindh 2mo agoFrom the Netherlands - German neighbors from the other side.. Chinese cars can be superior on paper, cheaper to buy or operate. The factors on a consumer mind is 1. If something is wrong(modern cars are like beta software), will I get the support and service? 2. Will the car company exist in 5/8/10 years after my purchase? Resale value, parts for future maintenance etc. The Chinese brands IMO are not there yet. A few years ago, Nio was very cool and tempting.. now they are winding down in Europe. There are plenty of reviews online where people struggle with service on their Chinese cars. Plus, it doesn’t help that they are dozens of brands(BYD, Xpeng, Zeekr, Cherry, Nio etc) instead of the confidence a brand like VW would instill(in the sense that your independent mechanic would know what to do if it’s VW). Perhaps if the Chinese brands stand the test of time in a few years, we would trust them like Hyundai/Kia of today.
- Sweepi 2mo ago> The Chinese brands IMO are not there yet. Thanks for keeping the lights on for my neighbors for a few more years. However, I think BYD is there, and if weren't for the EU's Chinese EV Important tax, you could almost buy 2 BYDs (one for driving and one for spare parts /s) for the price of an equivalent VW. I am not a car journalist and therefore have only seen 10s and not 100s/1000s of cars, but for my limited sample size: 100% of German(and most American and Japanese) car software is offensively bad. No idea whats so hard about getting at least the performance of a 10 year old iPad in a car. Also: If you want "German Quality", the closest you will get is by buying a Japanese/Korean car. If money is of no concern, the Mercedes EQS might be an OK option, but they lost their stand out feature by no longer selling (giving up on?) Level 3 self-driving.
- WhyIsItAlwaysHN 2mo ago[dead]
- Markoff 2mo agoit is hidden behind paywall, here no paywall and in English https://www.electrive.com/2026/08/04/denmark-evs-account-for-almost-all-new-car-registrations-in-july/ https://www.electrive.com/2026/08/04/denmark-evs-account-for... also it should be noted that Denmark has extremely high car registration taxes, so for instance 40K EUR worth ICE car cost after registration 73.5K EUR, while 40K EUR BEV cost after registration 40K EUR, that's really tough choice to make - either you pay 73K EUR for ICE or 40K EUR for BEV, both with same price tag in dealership + BEV has other benefits like cheaper parking etc. if gov were to remove these artificial (B)EV tax benefits then we would really see what would people choose, but gov is completely influecing the market, so people just do what is currently beneficial for their wallet, it is for sure not due to EV being good, do you think people would buy EVs if tax rates were reversed and ICE would cost 40K EUR and BEV would cost 73K EUR?
- soco 2mo agoData set of one: yes I would. I despise the stink of fumes. And generally, I see zero advantages of gas over EV - also the other way around - a car is a car, costs some, takes you from A to B, unless it's some hobby (which is not this discussion).
- Markoff 2mo agosome sure would, but do you seriously think 97% of private buyers would rather pay 30000 EUR extra (or double the retail price) for those few BEV advantages? I really doubt that, these sales are all just tax policy and nothing to do with BEV benefits zero ICE advantages? 1. lower price (if gov doesn't destroy market with taxes/benefits) 2. much bigger range 3. you can refill the tank in few minutes without any planning pretty much anywhere 4. you are saving the roads since ICE is usually much lighter than comparable BEV, cars should pay road tax based on their weight as main factor 5. cheaper per km expenses (vs fast chargers, half of the DK population lives in apartments) OTOH BEV advantages: 1. better acceleration 2. quieter 3. simpler engine, so in theory less maintenance and higher longetivity btw. you don't smell stink of your fumes, so your EV doesn't really solve this problem I really doubt (most) people care about acceleration/noise and maintenance that much they would be willing to pay double price of the ICE and get those disadvantages Don't get me wrong, I am fan of EVs, but under normal market conditions. Bring me Chinese EVs for Chinese price and if EV will be actually cheaper than some European ICE, then people can accept those EV disadvantages, but at current prices which are already not real thanks to gov it just doesn't make sense for someone not living in their own house with PV.
- sqbic 2mo agoNo wonder, the country is so small that any modern EV can drive it around completely with single charge. They also have abundance of especially wind energy, and the government recently dropped the electricity tax to EU minimum in order to make electricity very affordable for the Danish folks.
- soco 2mo agoI don't think driving around the country is the main selling point of a car, at least not around here. Huge commutes by car are not a usual thing in my environment, au contrary, I know companies who actively push against that.
- LtWorf 2mo agoIf I have a car and I cannot do a weekend trip with it, why did I spend the money?
- adrianN 2mo agoEVs are fine for weekend trips, you just have to spend a little more time taking breaks.
- soco 2mo agoI carry groceries and sometimes (rarely) do my short commute - 30 minutes electric instead of 50 minutes in PT. Vacations by car are maybe twice a year (I always prefer PT) and then, like the other commenter said, I stop anyway at almost every highway stop for a coffer or whatever, so the fast charger can fastly charge. So for this usage model, electric is yay.
- donkeylazy456 2mo agoMr. Trump unexpectedly, successfully promoted EV around the world!
- rich_sasha 2mo agoThe world is in a weird prisoner’s dilemma right now. US, China, to some extent India, are pumping out CO2, and deriving a short term “co2” dividend of higher growth, unencumbered by green transition cost. Europe is somewhat trying harder to transition away, partly for “green” reasons, partly for sovereignty reasons, partly because they just outsourced their industry. Europe is also potentially more affected by climate change than US and China, as I understand. India of course would be toast in a hotter world, but perhaps it too poor right now to do much about it easily. But discoordinated action won’t move the dial. So should Europe continue on the green path while losing GDP share to US, China and India? Should it jump on the coal bandwagon and screw up the world since everyone else is? It’s not like green contrarian action will do much good on its own. It’s altogether a not pretty picture…
- pgsandstrom 2mo agoMy impression is that the US is more vulnerable to climate change than Europe. While Europe has heat waves, the US has a hurricane problem that simply does not exist in Europe, which can result in horrendous societal damage.
- rickydroll 2mo agoDon't forget tornadoes and nor'easters (temperate-zone winter hurricanes). How do we compare on floods, drought, wildfires, heat domes, and deep cold?
- robocat 2mo agoPlus, the US dumped the most CO2 into the atmosphere in the first place. They shat in the pool and now seem be to telling others to clean up the pool. At least we received some good entertainment content from the US in return.
- rich_sasha 2mo agoIn fairness they’re not telling us to clean up the pool, but rather that swimming in shit is great and we should all make a nice big shitty swamp. Not much of a consolation but I want to give credit where it’s due.
- rsynnott 2mo agoAssuming this continues, it'll be interesting to see what happens in about a decade as demand for petrol collapses. My general sense is that there's a fairly _large_ minimum demand required before the fuel distribution network becomes uneconomic and just collapses.