EV sales surging in overseas markets accounting for 70% of UK car exports

With data released recently by car industry body the SMMT showing that three-quarters (76%) of cars built in the UK in the year to July were exported, the same proportion as in 2025, [1] new analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has found that 70% of the cars exported from the UK in 2025 were sold in markets that are experiencing strong growth in new EV sales, largely due to oil prices being pushed up by the war with Iran. 

The EU is the largest market for UK car exports, accounting for over half (56.7%) of UK car exports in 2025, and figures released today have revealed that EV sales in key European markets in August were 54.2% higher than last August, and that year-to-date sales were up by a third (33.1%). [2] EV market share this July reached 30.5% across the countries studied, including 38.3% in France and 32.5% in Germany (the EU’s largest car market). The EU has laws in place that will necessitate EVs making up the vast majority of new car sales by 2035. [3] Sales in sales of petrol and diesel cars peaked globally in 2017. [4] 

Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin, Head of Analysis at ECIU, said: “With three-quarters of the cars made in the UK being sold overseas, the future of our car industry will largely be determined by how it responds to rising EV demand in those markets, which is currently surging in part due to oil price spikes. Some manufacturers with UK factories have been slow to embrace EVs, but if the past tells us anything it’s that a failure to adapt to global technological change in the British car industry leads to closures and jobs losses as we saw in the 70s and 80s. 

“Some have sought to suggest the ZEV mandate, which encourages the sale of EVs in the UK, could disincentivise investment, but that policy is about car sales and not about where the car is manufactured. It seems fairly logical that new investment in the UK car industry at this stage would be in electric cars, given the clear global direction of travel of the market. 

“If part of the industry needs assistance in making the transition, the question for government is whether there are options available that don’t involve tearing up an entire policy that is reducing motoring costs for drivers during a cost-of-living crisis.” 

In other key export markets: 

• China, the UK’s third-largest car export market, accounting for 6.3% of UK car exports in 2025, has seen EV sales rise rapidly in recent years, reaching 44% market share in July 2026, [5] and has policies in place to incentivise sales of new EVs. [6]  
• Japan, the fifth largest car market for UK car exports, at 2.9% in 2025, has seen a doubling in EV sales in the half of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025. [7]
• Australia accounted for 1.5% of UK car exports in 2025, and has seen EV market share in the first half of the year more than double, from 7.7% in 2025 [8] to 17.3% in 2026. [9]
• Similarly, South Korea also accounted for 1.5% of UK car exports in 2025, and also saw EV sales for the first six months of the year more than double from 11.1% in 2025 to 23.3% in 2026. [10] 
• Switzerland accounted for 0.9% of UK car exports in 2025, and new EV sales increased by 21% from the first seven months of 2025 to the same period in 2026. [11] 

Taken together, these export markets with rising EV sales accounted for 69.8% (rounding to 70%) of UK car exports in 2025. The UK is also experiencing a surge in UK sales as consumers look to protect themselves from volatile petrol prices by making the shift to cleaner and cheaper electric driving, with sales in August being 27.7% up on last August, and year-to-date sales being 28.6% higher than in 2025. [12]  

But despite this clear evidence of a shift towards electric driving both at home and abroad, parts of the car industry are lobbying the UK Government to slow the EV transition, and the Government recently issued a consultation on reviewing its EV sales targets (the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate). [13]   

Dr Vicky Edmonds, CEO of EVA England, said:“EVs can save families thousands of pounds a year in running costs, and they are proving themselves to be more resilient to global shocks than petrol and diesel alternatives. Every household deserves to benefit from their use. But drivers are easily rattled by the misleading noise that is being relentlessly spread about EVs and the realities of EV ownership. It is absolutely vital that policies like the ZEV mandate remain stable and continue to provide a strong base from which to drive customer demand. And it is also vital that industry focuses on meeting that demand, rather than contributing to this noise.” 

Simon Sharpe, Managing Director of S-Curve Economics Communications Ltd, said: “Strong regulatory policies such as ZEV mandates are incredibly effective in forcing manufacturers to reallocate investment from the old technology to the new. When the EU tightened its carbon intensity regulations in 2020, manufacturing of electric vehicles and batteries grew and the EV share of sales jumped from 3% to 11% in a single year. [14] China’s EV share of car sales overtook Europe’s in 2021 thanks to its powerful dual credit regulation. After the UK introduced the ZEV mandate in 2024, it swiftly became the largest EV market in Europe. 

“Some car manufacturers lobby against these regulations because the old technology is still more profitable. This is understandable, but self-defeating. In the past decade, the manufacturers whose share of the market has grown most rapidly are those that have embraced the new technology, supported by strong policies”.  

Analysis suggests that changes to the UK’s ZEV Mandate currently under consultation could cause a domino effect of further policy changes, leading to 5.8 million fewer EVs being sold than under current policies, and with the petrol cars and plug-in hybrids that would be sold instead costing over £20bn (2026 real prices) more to fuel by 2050. [15]   

The one major market for UK car exports that is bucking the upward EV trends is the US, which accounted for 15% of UK car exports in 2025. Mandates to increase the sale of new EVs are in place in 17 US states, [16] representing 35% of the US new car market, [17] but their implementation is being held up by the current federal Government. However, there are signs of a rise in interest in EVs amongst US consumers, driven by the recent rise of the cost of fuel as a result of the country’s war with Iran – used EVs sales in the US in March increased by 28% year on year, with a new record being set for the number of used EVs sold in a single month, and in each month since have been higher than the same month last year. [18] 

Other markets in the top ten, accounting for 7.8% of UK car exports are Türkiye, Canada and the UAE, whose recent trends have been mixed. 

Whilst not a significant market for UK car exports, even Russia has experienced a surge in EV sales as drivers try and avoid soaring prices and long queues at the pump. [19] 

Analysis conducted in 2024 by CBI Economics for ECIU found that a failure by the car industry to make the transition to manufacturing EVs could see its contributions to the UK economy fall by as much as 73%, or £34bn, and see over 400,000 jobs being lost. Conversely, economic output could increase by over £16bn, and 167,000 new jobs could be created, if a rapid and successful transition takes place. [20]