European Electric Scooter and Motorcycles Market 2023

European Electric Scooter & Motorcycles Market is struggling. In Western Europe, EV sales after 9 months 2023 were down 27.1%, while in the whole continents, including Turkey which is booming in any segment, sales are up 0.5%, with Turkey up 390.6%.

Please note data reported regards the motorcycles industry in large extended, including not only 2/3 wheelers as moped, scooter, motorcycles, but even other vehicles, like ATVs, usually included in this industry. Differently from ACEA and other local sources (like FEBIAC), we do not consider the powered-bicycles inside the industry, even because data available regards only registered bicycles and are limited to those countries (Belgium, Netherlands, France) where a plate is required.

Electric Two Wheeler Market Trend 2023

As you may have seen, reading our report on European Motorcycles Market, it seems that the momentum has not been lost by the industry as effect of combined negative factors, starting from increased cost of global logistic, raw material, energy and the market acceleration due to covid 19 is now over, while increased interest rates and reduced purchase power can hit the market in the next future.

However, when looking at the electric two wheeler segment, data is surprisingly different.

All were expecting a consolidation of segment growth, after the positive results scored in the 2022, when the EVs segment represented the 7.1% of total 2-wheeler market, but 2023 data are disappointing with the segment losing terrain towards the ICE models and sales declining against any expectations.

Considering the Western Europe, EV sales after 9 months 2023 have been down 27.1%, while in the whole continents, including Turkey which is booming in any segment, sales are up 0.5%, with Turkey up 390.6%.

The trend should be considered excluding the unique-in-the-world case of Turkey and the main question is: why EV are declining rather than booming?

The main reason is located far, in China, where the electric OEMs are facing production difficulties due to a combination of factors. Last year short supply and production shutdown have been replaced by the difficulties created by the new Chinese government incentive policy, with the  sustain at EVs producers deeply reduced, creating difficulties for OEMS to be profitable.

Higher difficulties are faced by those companies quoted in Hong Kong or New York stock exchange (Yadea, Niu Tech), places where profitability is the real measure of company healthy.

In addition, the former European leader, the Chinese NIU, shifted the focus fro electric scooter to electric kick scooter, losing profit per units and hardly disappointing the recently created European network. 

Looking at the single countries, the largest EVs market in Europe is Turkey, with segment growing 390.6% this year.

The second is France (-11.4%) ahead of the Netherlands (-41.3%), Italy (-21.1%), Spain (-20.4%) and Germany (-44.7%).

The top selling OEMs is the Turkish Arora (+287%) ahead of Vmoto Soco (+-57.8%) and BMW (+34.6%).