Leva

2020: E-motorcycles & speed pedelecs push European L-category registrations forward

1162 days ago

3 minutes

Last year, the European motorcycle market only continued to grow thanks to increased sales of electric vehicles. Electric mopeds already achieve a share of more than 20 % in registrations. That is largely to the credit of speed pedelecs.


2020 was a symbolically important year for electric motorcycles. It was only thanks to them that the total EU market continued to grow. Their registrations jumped from 12,263 to 18,620, almost 52% growth. The registration of internal combustion engine (ICE) motorcycles completely stagnated, despite increased pre-registrations due to the validity of Euro 4 approvals ending on 31 December 2020. The share of electric motorcycles in total registration rose from 1.4 to 2.1%. The Corona-crisis appears to have had a rather beneficial effect on e-motorcycle sales with significant increases in most months except in April, June, October and November.

Spain remained the largest market with 6,370 registrations, which is plus 7%. The biggest growth however occurred in Italy where registrations were almost 3.5 times higher than in 2019. Italy became the second biggest market with more than 5,600 registrations. In 2020, the country had a € 1.3 million budget for scrapping ICE- and purchasing electric L-category vehicles. France on number 3 booked 30.5% more and Germany 53.6%. France also has a national incentives’ program, while Germany only has measures in place in a few regions.

Electric moped registrations also increased, but only by 12.5% from 52,000 to 58,500. That was 1% less than then the growth of the total moped market. E-mopeds already have a 21% share in total registrations. It should be taken into account that these number include speed pedelecs.
In 2 countries, registrations made a major leap of more than 50%. The Netherlands jumped over Belgium to become number one with just under 20,000 registrations. The Netherlands offer extensive tax exemption and deduction for e-vehicles. In Spain, registrations increased from + 5,500 tot + 8,500.

In two countries, registrations declined: with more than 20% in France to just under 11,000 and with 10% in Belgium to almost 14,400. In reality, the Belgian e-moped registrations only included 1,891 conventional e-mopeds. That was almost 40% less than in 2019. This decline was due to the deletion of the successful Flemish subsidy for e-mopeds (excluding speed pedelecs). Of the Belgian 14,400 registrations last year, 12,500 were speed pedelecs.

Statistics’ source: ACEM

Electric Motorcycle Registrations

Electric Moped Registrations

Annick Roetynck

Annick is the Manager of LEVA-EU, with decades of experience in two-wheeled and light electric mobility.

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