Electric cars are now a quarter of Portugal's market and diesel is fading fast
More than 33,000 electric vehicles were sold in Portugal in the first half of 2026, up 33.4%. Fully electric cars took 25.3% of the market, and alternative-energy vehicles now account for 74.2% of registrations.
If you still talk about electric cars as an eccentric neighbour’s hobby, you are working from three-year-old numbers. Portugal sold more than 33,000 electric vehicles in the first half of 2026, up 33.4% on the same period of 2025, and fully electric models closed the half-year on 25.3% of the market. In June alone they took 28.7% of all passenger car sales.
The whole market grew too: 157,943 new vehicles over the six months, up 10.4%, and 30,317 in June alone, 15% more than a year earlier. This is not one cake being resliced — it is a bigger cake whose electric slice is growing faster than the rest of it.
How much of Portugal’s car market is electric now?
A quarter, counting only fully electric models. But the number that really describes what is happening is a different one: 74.2% of all passenger cars registered in the half-year run on alternative energy, hybrids and EVs combined. Three in every four new cars leaving a Portuguese showroom are no longer a pure combustion engine.
And what about diesel?
In historic decline, and that is the part reshaping the landscape. For two decades diesel was the default for anyone covering distance in Portugal, pushed along by lower tax and better motorway consumption. It is now sliding towards residual levels in the new-car market — which does not mean it vanishes from the roads, because Portugal’s fleet is old and takes years to turn over.
What is driving the shift is a mix of cheaper entry prices, Chinese brands arriving in force, and subsidy. The state purchase incentive still matters, and we have explained how the last round of the electric car incentive worked. Full monthly figures are published by ACAP.
Which leaves the boring part: chargers. Selling 33,000 EVs in six months is easy compared with getting all of them charged on an August bank holiday weekend.
By Beatriz Mota
Image: Resende13 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
