In 2020, barely one in 25 new cars sold in Europe ran on a battery. By the end of 2024, that ratio had climbed to roughly one in five. China’s shift has been even more dramatic: electric vehicles now outsell conventional cars in several segments, with models like the BYD Seagull retailing for under $10,000. According to the International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook 2025, these two markets have crossed a “tipping point” that makes the worldwide retreat from gasoline-powered cars effectively permanent.
That is a bold claim. But the evidence behind it rests on two pillars that are now reinforcing each other: binding regulation that locks automakers into electrification, and falling battery costs that are making the economics of gas cars harder to justify. Together, they have created a feedback loop that even political resistance and trade friction have so far failed to break.
The numbers behind the tipping point
Europe’s roughly 20% EV sales share in 2024 combines battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Strip out the hybrids and the picture is still striking: pure battery cars alone accounted for 13.6% of all new EU registrations last year, according to the European Environment Agency. That means fully electric models, not hybrids acting as a bridge technology, are doing most of the heavy lifting. Five years ago, they were a niche product for early adopters. Now they are a mass-market category.
China’s dominance is even more pronounced. The IEA’s 2024 overview established that China and Europe together account for the vast majority of global EV sales. Chinese manufacturers have driven battery cell costs down so aggressively that electric cars already undercut their gasoline equivalents on sticker price in multiple segments. The BYD Seagull, a city car that starts below $10,000 in China, has no combustion-engine rival at that price that can match its features. When upfront cost parity arrives, the lower fuel and maintenance bills of an EV tilt the total cost of ownership decisively in its favor.
Data from the IEA’s Global EV Data Explorer show Chinese automakers leveraging that cost advantage to push exports into Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Those shipments carry more than cars; they spread Chinese battery technology, platform designs, and supply-chain relationships into foreign markets, entrenching EV ecosystems of charging networks, trained mechanics, and secondhand markets that make it progressively harder for combustion technology to reclaim lost ground.
Regulation has locked the door
On the policy side, Europe’s legal framework has moved beyond aspiration. Regulation (EU) 2023/851, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, requires a 100% reduction in CO2 emissions for new cars and vans from 2035. In practical terms, that is a ban on selling new internal combustion vehicles across the bloc after that date. The European Commission has described the target as 0 g CO2/km for the entire new-car fleet.
Automakers lobbied hard for near-term relief, and they got some. On May 27, 2025, the European Council gave final approval to a flexibility mechanism that lets manufacturers average their CO2 compliance across the 2025 to 2027 period rather than hitting annual targets. But the concession adjusts the pace without changing the destination. The 2035 zero-emissions mandate remains untouched. Reversing it would require a full new legislative process through the European Parliament and Council, a politically steep climb given the climate commitments already embedded in the European Green Deal and national decarbonization plans.
“The negotiations are now about timing and burden-sharing, not about whether to phase out tailpipe emissions,” is how one Brussels-based policy analyst summarized the dynamic to colleagues at a May 2025 transport forum. That distinction matters: even when industry pressure succeeds, it reshapes the glide path, not the landing zone.
What could still slow things down
None of this means the road ahead is smooth. Several significant uncertainties remain, and they deserve honest accounting.
Primary Chinese government data on post-2025 subsidy plans and exact EV production mandates are not fully available in Western reporting. The IEA synthesizes Chinese market data, but the underlying policy documents from Beijing that would confirm future subsidy trajectories, purchase-tax exemptions, or local quota systems have not been independently verified through these sources. How much of China’s future EV growth will rely on continued state support versus pure market competitiveness is an open question.
European automaker compliance roadmaps are similarly opaque. No manufacturer has published a detailed public plan showing exactly how it intends to meet the 2035 target across all brands and segments. Earnings calls offer general commitments to “electrify portfolios,” but the specific production mixes, factory retooling timelines, and battery sourcing strategies that would make those pledges fully credible are largely absent from the public record.
Consumer sensitivity to subsidy cuts is another blind spot. Several EU member states adjusted or ended EV purchase incentives during 2024, but no official Commission-level analysis of how those cuts affected adoption rates has been published. Aggregated registration data from the European Alternative Fuels Observatory show monthly trends, but they do not isolate the subsidy variable from other factors like falling battery prices, manufacturer discounts, or the arrival of cheaper Chinese models. Analysts can describe correlations but cannot yet quantify how price-sensitive European buyers really are when government checks disappear.
Trade policy adds another layer of unpredictability. The European Union imposed provisional countervailing duties on Chinese-made EVs in 2024, and the United States maintains a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. A broader surge in protectionist measures could slow the spread of low-cost Chinese EVs into foreign markets, delaying the point at which gasoline demand enters structural decline. Emerging markets like India and Southeast Asia, where EV adoption is still in early stages, could also chart a different course depending on local policy and infrastructure investment.
Charging infrastructure remains a practical concern for millions of European drivers. Rural coverage is thin in many member states, apartment dwellers often lack access to home charging, and permitting delays for new fast-charging stations have frustrated both automakers and grid operators. These bottlenecks will not reverse the transition, but they can slow it and shape which consumers benefit first.
Why the direction of travel is set
Zoom out from the uncertainties and the structural picture comes into focus. Regulators in the world’s two largest car markets outside the United States have defined the end state: zero-emission new vehicles. Manufacturers are allocating capital to electric platforms and battery supply chains that promise growth, not to technologies facing a legal phase-out. Battery costs continue to fall, narrowing and in some cases eliminating the price gap that once made EVs a luxury proposition. And Chinese industrial scale is exporting that cost advantage globally, building EV ecosystems in market after market.
The precise timeline for when global oil demand peaks, or when EVs become the majority of new car sales worldwide, remains genuinely uncertain. Speed bumps around raw-material bottlenecks, factory permitting, trade wars, and charging gaps are real. But these risks operate within a system whose direction is already determined by law and economics working in concert.
The competitive contest between gasoline and electric drivetrains, in the markets that matter most for global volume, is effectively over. What remains to be settled is not the outcome but how quickly and how evenly the consequences will reach every region, every automaker, and every driver still filling up at the pump.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
