Revealed: parts of Europe fall behind in the race to become EV-friendly 

• In new research by Compare the Market, Switzerland was revealed to be the least friendly country for EV use for categories such as number of charging stations.
• Norway was the most EV-friendly country of the 29 included in the study.
• Türkiye had the most expensive electricity cost at US$0.67/kWh.

Compare the Market Australia has created a new index looking at 29 OECD countries and comparing them for how EV-friendly they are.

The index considered a variety of metrics such as EV sales, number of charging stations and when a country plans to stop the sale of new carbon-fuel cars.

The least EV-friendly countries were revealed to be Switzerland (scoring 1.61/5), Türkiye (scoring 1.73/5) and Australia (2.14/5).

Switzerland performed so poorly for a variety of reasons, including having a small number of charging stations (12,300) and no clear date when new traditional car sales would stop. Meanwhile, Türkiye had the most expensive energy prices (US$0.67/kWh).

Australia did poorly for a variety of different reasons. Firstly, the country had 2,570 charging stations for EVs recorded and there was only 38,900 EVs sold in 2022. The number of EV sales only made up 3.8% of new car sales in 2022, compared to the global average of nine percent.

On the flip side, the most EV-friendly countries were found to be Norway (4.32/5), France (3.88/5) and the United Kingdom (3.78/5 ).

Norway, who came first in the index, performed highly in a variety of different metrics such as having strong government incentives for purchasing EVs, as the country taxes traditional vehicle sales at a higher rate. Its score was also increased due to its ambitious target to ban petrol car sales by 2025 – one of the most aggressive targets in the world.

France, which ranked second, was in the top 10 for the number of EV charging stations recording 83,700 and had a strong number of electric vehicle sales at 340,000 in 2022.

Meanwhile the UK, who ranked third on Compare the Market’s   index, also did well in a variety of different metrics such as having the third-greatest number of EV sales in 2022 (370,000).

Compare the Market’s General Manager of General Insurance, Adrian Taylor, said countries like Switzerland, Türkiye and Portugal had a lot of work to do to become more EV-friendly.

“The race to become more EV-friendly is a competitive one, and many countries are working hard to meet fossil fuel bans and improve incentives for EV use ,” he said.

“For example, the purchase price of a new EV remains quite high in many countries, which is why some of the countries that performed well on our index offer incentives that make it more affordable to obtain one in the first place, rather than road toll incentives or other similar enticements.”

For more information on how other countries performed in the index and how the methodology was calculated, please visit: https://www.comparethemarket.com.au/energy/features/electric-vehicle-charging-costs-per-country/