Battery electric cars took 29% of new car sales in Europe in August, and across the European Union for the first eight months of the year they reached 21.7% of registrations, exactly level with petrol. Hybrids remain the largest single category on 36.6%, and the spread between Norway at 98% and Croatia at 4% is twenty-four fold.

Battery electric cars took 29% of new car sales in Europe in August, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation, InsideEVs reported. Registration data from the industry body ACEA puts the figure at 29.2% across the European Union, Britain and the EFTA countries. A year earlier it was 20.2%.

The year to date is tighter.

Across the European Union alone, battery electric reached 21.7% of registrations over the first eight months, on 1,641,333 cars, ACEA reported. Petrol reached 21.7% as well. The two are level for the year.

Diesel is close to a rounding error.

It took 7.3% of European Union registrations over the same period, down from 9.4% a year earlier. Petrol fell from 28% to its dead heat with battery electric. Battery electric itself rose from 15.8%, which is the fastest move of the three.

Hybrids remain the largest group.

They took 36.6% of European Union registrations to August, or 2,759,718 cars, with plug-in hybrids accounting for 10% of the market and 758,082 of those. That is nearly 15 points ahead of battery electric, which is bad news for 2035.

The continent does not move together.

Norway registered 98% electric from January to August, Denmark 82%, Finland 50%, Iceland 47% and Sweden 43%. Croatia managed 4%. A gap of twenty-four times sits inside a market that shares one set of emissions rules and one set of tariffs.

August was a step, not a drift.

The share sat at 25% in June and 25% in July, so August breaks a plateau rather than extending a trend. BMW Group led European manufacturers with 30% of its sales electric across the year, ten percentage points up on the same period last year. Registrations across the union rose 5.3% overall.

Germany has already turned.

Volkswagen is now taking more orders for electric cars than for petrol and diesel at home, and has cancelled extra shifts at Wolfsburg while adding them at Emden and Zwickau. Germany is Europe’s largest car market, and the four models driving that shift are all built in Spain. The continent is buying faster than its factories were arranged to supply.