Across the EU, the share of new cars sold so far this year that were diesel was only 14.52 percent, down from 44.4 percent in 2017. Meanwhile, in Czechia that proportion has remained relatively unchanged over the same period, declining slightly from 37.69 percent and hovering around 25 percent since 2019.
Meanwhile, interest in electric cars is steadily increasing in the rest of the EU. In 2022, battery-powered electric cars made up 12.1 percent of car sales in the EU (a year-on-year increase of 28 percent), and in the first half of this year that rose to 12.94 percent. Hybrid electric cars are even more popular, making up 24.93 percent of new car sales across the EU.
In Czechia, however, only 2.69 percent of new cars sold so far this year were electric – about one in every 40. For the same period in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, it was closer to one in three. This low uptake of electric cars makes Czechia second-to-last in the EU. Only Slovakia had a lower percentage, with 2.39 percent.
The Transport Ministry says it is on the case, however. The Transport Research Centre’s report cites Jan Bezděkovský, the Transport Ministry Commissioner for Clean Mobility, who says that the ministry is aware of the need to intensify the construction of ultra-fast charging stations, especially on the highway network. To this end, it plans to invest a total of 6 billion crowns in infrastructure for electric cars over the coming years.

Source: Czech Radio
Prepared by the team of foreign office CzechTrade and CzechInvest Seoul