Electric cars in the EU car parc: shares of BEVs and hybrids and the changes for workshops

Shares of BEVs, PHEVs and hybrids in the EU car parc and new registrations according to ACEA. What they mean for training, equipment, capacity and parts.

Key findings

According to ACEA, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) accounted for 2.3% of the EU passenger car parc in 2024, plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) for 1.4% and hybrids without external charging (HEVs) for 5.0%. Out of approximately 256 million cars, that is roughly 5.9 million BEVs.
In EU new registrations for January–September 2026, the shares of the same categories reached 22.7%, 10.1% and 36.3% according to ACEA. The job mix in the workshop is therefore changing more slowly than what is on offer in the showroom.
The differences between countries are large. In the 2024 passenger car parc, BEVs had a share of 12.1% in Denmark, 3.3% in Germany and 0.5% in Czechia (ACEA).
BEVs take combustion engine maintenance away from the workshop and add diagnostics of the drivetrain, battery and charging. PHEVs and HEVs keep engine maintenance and have an electrical system on top.
Even a workshop that sees electrified cars only occasionally needs the competence and equipment for high-voltage work. Expensive parts, such as the traction battery, should only be ordered for a confirmed repair.

Electric cars in the car parc are changing the work of workshops differently and more slowly than their growing share in showrooms suggests. Sales statistics show which cars are being added. The make-up of the whole parc shows what is coming in for maintenance and repair today. The service manager needs both views: the parc for today's capacity, new registrations for training and equipment in the coming years. Battery electric vehicles must also be distinguished from hybrids, because they bring different work into the workshop.

What do BEV, PHEV and HEV mean for servicing?

The umbrella term electrified cars covers a variety of powertrains. Their shares therefore cannot simply be converted into jobs for a technician qualified for high-voltage work.

Category	Powertrain and charging	What it means for the workshop
BEV – battery electric vehicle	Electric drive, traction battery charged externally	Operations related to the combustion engine disappear. Suspension, tyres, brakes and air conditioning remain. Diagnostics of the electric drive and charging increase.
PHEV – plug-in hybrid	Combustion engine and electric drive, external charging	The workshop must be able to handle both systems and how they interact.
HEV – hybrid without external charging	Combustion engine supplemented by electric drive	Combustion engine maintenance remains. The scope of electrical work depends on the design of the specific system.

The label "hybrid" alone is not enough to order parts or allocate work. The exact powertrain variant needs to be known as early as vehicle reception. Otherwise, the job ends up with a technician without the appropriate competence or the wrong part is ordered for it.

In Omnetic, the Workshop module manages the job from the quote through vehicle reception, parts and planning to invoicing. Vehicle and powertrain data therefore stay with the same job when the service advisor passes it on to the parts department and the workshop. Line items can be split between the customer, warranty and the insurer, in both franchised and independent workshops.

What share of the EU car parc do electric cars have?

According to the ACEA report Vehicles on European roads 2026, there were approximately 256 million passenger cars on the road in the EU in 2024. Petrol cars accounted for 49.2% of the parc and diesel cars for 38.4%. Electrified powertrains therefore made up less than a tenth of the parc combined. That is roughly 5.9 million BEVs, 3.6 million PHEVs and 12.8 million HEVs. Cars with combustion engines continue to form the basis of demand for servicing.

Passenger car parc: EU and selected countries

Share of the passenger car parc in 2024, source: ACEA Vehicles on European roads 2026.

Market	BEV	PHEV	HEV
EU	2.3%	1.4%	5.0%
Denmark	12.1%	4.5%	1.8%
Sweden	7.2%	6.3%	4.2%
Netherlands	6.1%	4.1%	7.4%
Belgium	5.1%	5.5%	3.2%
Germany	3.3%	2.0%	5.2%
France	2.8%	1.8%	5.8%
Czechia	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%

For a service network, this means a different order of investment depending on the market. A branch in Denmark needs broader readiness for BEVs than a site that mainly sees combustion-engined cars. In Belgium and Sweden, plug-in hybrids make up a large part of the electrified parc. Workshops there must therefore be able to handle both the electric drive and the combustion engine in the same car.

The share of electric cars is related to the age of the parc. In 2024, the average passenger car was 9.8 years old in Denmark, 16.5 years in Czechia and 12.7 years in the EU (ACEA). Where the parc is older, electrification reaches workshops later. The age of the car parc by country is analysed in detail in the article Average age of cars in Europe.

There are often large differences within a single country too. Brand focus, the share of business customers and the age of the cars coming in can take a local workshop well away from the national average. National statistics show the direction. The capacity of a workshop needs to be allocated according to its own job mix.

Why does the share of new registrations differ from the parc?

New registrations are the additions over a given period. The car parc also includes cars sold in previous years that are still on the road. A higher share of electrified new cars therefore feeds through to a workshop's customer base gradually.

New passenger car registrations

Share of new registrations for January–September 2026, source: ACEA, registration figures for September 2026. National shares are calculated from registration numbers.

Market	BEV	PHEV	HEV
EU	22.7%	10.1%	36.3%
Denmark	81.7%	0.5%	10.8%
Sweden	42.9%	23.9%	7.7%
Netherlands	41.2%	22.4%	27.7%
Belgium	39.1%	5.9%	11.4%
Germany	27.2%	11.1%	28.5%
France	31.4%	5.8%	43.3%
Czechia	7.4%	5.1%	24.5%

In absolute terms, according to ACEA, 1,931,465 new BEVs, 860,257 PHEVs and 3,090,530 HEVs were added in the EU in January–September 2026. Within three years, the electrified make-up of the parc will shift noticeably in most markets. It will shift fastest where electrified cars already dominate registrations today. This follows from the difference between the two tables; it is not an official forecast.

More recent national data confirm the shift. According to the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), as of 1 January 2026, BEVs accounted for 4.1% of the German passenger car parc (2,034,260 cars) and plug-in hybrids for 2.3%. According to ACEA, the figures for 2024 were 3.3% and 2.0%.

Franchised workshops will feel the change first. According to German data for 2025, franchised workshops carried out 86% of the maintenance of cars under three years old. For cars aged six years and over, 56% of maintenance was carried out by independent workshops and 39% by franchised workshops. Electrified cars in the parc are mostly young, so they will reach independent workshops in larger numbers only after a delay of several years. However, both types of business will still need capacity for combustion-engined cars in the coming years.

How will the service job mix change?

Electrification does not reduce service work evenly. Some routine operations disappear, others remain and part of the work shifts from replacements to diagnostics.

Area	BEV	PHEV and HEV	Impact on operations
Combustion engine	No engine oil changes, spark plug replacements or exhaust repairs	Engine maintenance continues according to the service schedule	The service offer is split by powertrain.
Brakes	Regenerative braking reduces the use of friction brakes	Regenerative braking depending on design and driving mode	Pads wear less, but discs can corrode and mechanisms can seize.
Tyres and suspension	Wear is influenced by vehicle weight, wheel alignment and driving style	The same assessment depending on the specific variant	Tyres are selected according to the car's approved specifications, not the type of powertrain.
Diagnostics	Drivetrain, battery, charging, thermal management	Plus interaction with the combustion engine	The job needs diagnostic time, technical information and access to the car's systems.

A universal percentage for higher tyre consumption by electric cars does not belong in the plan. Weight, driving style, wheel alignment and tyre design all act together. For planning seasonal capacity and tyre stock, the workshop's own statistics on replacements by model are more valuable.

Similar class of car, different work

The Volkswagen Golf illustrates the difference well. The Golf VII 2.0 TDI with 110 kW (built 2013–2019) brings work related to the diesel engine and its ancillaries. The Golf GTE (2014–2018, system output 150 kW) has both a combustion engine and an electric drive with external charging. The Volkswagen ID.3 has a 150 kW electric motor driving the rear wheels and a battery with a usable capacity of 58 kWh (Pro Performance) or 77 kWh (Pro S). With this car, the workshop's attention shifts to the drivetrain, charging and thermal management.

Cars of the same size therefore cannot be assigned a single service package. In addition, low mileage on the combustion engine of a plug-in hybrid does not cancel the time-based intervals for its maintenance.

What training and equipment does the workshop need?

Changing the tyres on an electric car and working on its high-voltage system are two different scopes of work. The workshop needs to define clearly which technicians are allowed to carry out which operations and how a job is passed on to a specialist.

An example from Czechia is qualification standard 26-095-H, in force since December 2022. It covers de-energising the car, verifying this by measurement, protecting against re-energisation, measuring insulation resistance and diagnostics with standard production diagnostic tools. For the examination, it lists protective equipment, up-to-date technical documentation, diagnostic and measuring equipment. Qualification and safety requirements in each country are governed by local regulations and manufacturer guidelines. For a service network across Europe, the same operational principle applies: each type of work requires authorised people, equipment and a procedure.

The investment should cover the entire work process:

Technical information and diagnostics: procedures for the specific model and the ability to carry out the prescribed tests.
Measuring and protective equipment: according to the scope of permitted work, including regular inspection of the equipment.
Workstation and handling: layout according to the operations carried out, especially when the workshop plans to remove traction batteries.
Cover: at least two people with high-voltage competence on each shift, so that jobs do not depend on a single specialist.

Not every workshop needs to carry out internal repairs on traction batteries. The workshop can handle routine maintenance and diagnostics itself. Specialised battery repairs can be passed on to a partner facility.

How to plan capacity and parts stock

It is good practice to track capacity by type of powertrain and type of work. The total number of electrified cars masks the difference between a seasonal tyre change and tracking down an intermittent charging fault.

Operational situation	Capacity and training priority	Parts priority
Mainly combustion-engined cars, electrified jobs come in only occasionally	Safe reception, defined competences and a route for passing on specialised repairs	Stock based on current consumption; order expensive parts for the electric drive for specific jobs.
Routine maintenance of BEVs and hybrids	Cover for trained technicians, diagnostics and planning by specialisation	Parts distinguished by powertrain variant, tracking of consumption and delivery times.
Specialisation in electric drive and more complex repairs	An equipped workstation, more in-depth diagnostics and sequencing of work steps	Parts reserved for specific repairs; fast-moving items kept separate from expensive assemblies.

Besides hours sold, it is also necessary to track diagnostic time worked, waiting for parts and repeat visits with the same fault. Otherwise, a growing number of jobs will mask a specialist's blocked capacity. Time-keeping in Omnetic books the time worked directly to the job and its line items. This shows whether hours sold match hours worked and how busy individual technicians and branches are.

In the parts department, accurate identification of parts is becoming more important. Even for combustion-engined cars, which make up the majority of jobs today, there are many variants. The facelifted third-generation Škoda Octavia (2017) had four TSI petrol engines, four TDI diesels and one CNG engine, with outputs of 63–135 kW and a manual or DSG gearbox. The Renault Clio IV (2012–2019) offered a 0.9 TCe three-cylinder petrol engine with 90 hp and a 1.5 dCi diesel in 75, 90 and 110 hp versions. Electrified variants add further different brake, cooling and electrical components. Traction batteries and expensive power electronics parts should not be kept in stock "just in case"; they should only be purchased for a confirmed repair. Warehouse in Omnetic reserves parts for open service jobs, releases them when a job is changed or cancelled and, with ABC analysis and minimum and maximum levels for each stock location, helps identify non-moving parts.

Pitfalls to watch out for

Planning the workshop on the basis of new registrations. They show the direction of change, not today's mix of service visits.
Adding up overlapping categories. As of 1 January 2026, KBA reports hybrids as a whole with a share of 8.8%, and plug-in hybrids (2.3%) are part of this figure. Anyone who adds the two figures together counts PHEVs twice. Only categories with the same content can be compared.
Mistaking an electrified job for high-voltage work. The scope of the operation and the technician's competence must match.
Diagnostics based only on the fault memory. For problems with charging or thermal management, the conditions under which the fault occurred also need to be recorded.
Running down stock for combustion-engined cars too early. Petrol and diesel cars together made up 87.6% of the EU parc in 2024 and continue to generate most of the demand for maintenance and repair.

Omnetic links the job, capacity and parts

In a mixed workshop, it is not enough to plan free bays. The repair appointment depends on the labour content of the work, which technician is allowed to work on the car and the availability of parts. When this information sits in separate spreadsheets and systems, someone has to transfer every change by hand.

Omnetic runs all its modules on one shared record of the vehicle, customer, jobs and money in DMS Core, so data is not re-keyed between modules.

Planner proposes a repair appointment based on the labour content of the work, the required specialisation and the workshop's actual capacity. It assigns work to technicians according to skills and availability, takes parts in stock into account and adjusts the plan when there is a delay, an absence or a change to the job. The workshop foreman decides on the plan.
Workshop and Warehouse keep the job and parts together: a part reserved for an electric car repair is visible on the job and on the stock card across branches.
Step-by-step introduction: Omnetic can be used starting with a single module, with others added later. Existing systems, such as a manufacturer portal or accounting software, are connected via the open platform.

Arrange an Omnetic demo and walk through planning for a mixed workshop and how jobs link to parts stock.

FAQ

Does a workshop need a charger at every work bay?

No. The number of charging points depends on the repair mix, how diagnostics are carried out and how cars are handed back to customers. The workshop should be laid out so that a car being charged does not block a repair bay.

What information helps when taking in a car with a charging fault?

The type of charging, where the problem occurred, the cable used, the car's messages and the circumstances of the interruption. A photo of the error message captures a fault that may not appear during the visit to the workshop.

Is the battery charge level the same as its state of health?

No. The state of charge (SoC) describes the energy currently stored, the state of health (SoH) the condition of the battery. When buying in a used electric car, what counts is a diagnostic report stating the measurement method and conditions, not a photo of the range shown on the display.