Europe's electric vehicle build-out has now drawn close to €200 billion in committed investment across vehicles, batteries and charging infrastructure, according to analysis published this week by New Automotive in partnership with E-Mobility Europe. The figure covers €60 billion in new and retooled car plants, €109 billion across the battery supply chain, and between €23 and €46 billion earmarked for public charging, with a further €3.5 billion in charging equipment manufacturing. Private charging, largely at homes, workplaces and fleet depots, sits outside the count but comfortably exceeds the public charging fleet in terms of scale.
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The report lands as Brussels reopens debate on the 2035 zero-emission car target, with several Member States pressing to weaken it. The authors argue the commitments are now large and interlocking enough that any policy wobble carries direct financial consequences. Roughly 150,000 jobs are tied to the investments mapped, with a further 300,000 expected if announced projects reach completion.
Geographically, the capital is clustering into a handful of regional hubs. Germany takes around a quarter of EU e-mobility investment at €55 billion, anchored by Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes and Tesla in vehicles and PowerCo, CATL and BASF in batteries. France, at €40 billion, has built a tighter model around Hauts-de-France, where ACC, Verkor and Prologium sit alongside Renault and Stellantis production. Central and Eastern Europe together draw 20 to 25 percent of the total, led by Hungary's €25 billion in gigafactories and co-located vehicle plants. Spain and Portugal form an export-oriented manufacturing platform, while Italy specialises in charging hardware and power electronics, with Alpitronic among the global leaders in ultra-fast systems.
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One finding cuts across the country breakdown: several of the governments most resistant to the 2035 target are also those whose regions stand to gain most from the investment wave. More than half of the tracked capital sits in Germany, Italy and Central and Eastern Europe.
Chris Heron, Secretary General of E-Mobility Europe, states it plainly: "Europe's EV industries are investing at scale. Political backtracking and constant uncertainty are becoming a direct threat to investment," he said. "Short-term flexibilities to the EU's CO₂ framework are under discussion, but they cannot come at the expense of long-term investment certainty."
The number that matters to investors is utilisation. Battery plants and charging networks are capital-intensive, multi-decade assets whose returns depend on high throughput and predictable demand. Even modest revisions to the 2030 or 2035 framework, the analysis warns, would raise the cost of capital, push projects past financial close, or shift them outside Europe at a moment when Chinese rivals are well placed to step in. Of the three, battery investment is the most vulnerable to delay, exposed to global competition and dependent on scale to work.
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Europe now produces batteries for roughly one in three EVs sold domestically, and announced capacity would meet projected demand if fully delivered. Structural gaps remain in precursors, cathodes and parts of the midstream value chain, where the authors call for EU scale-up finance to work in tandem with the CO₂ standards.
Ben Nelmes, Chief Executive of New Automotive, added: "Europe has made enormous progress in building a domestic EV ecosystem, with investment flowing into regions that stand to benefit most from the transition. Maintaining a clear and consistent policy framework will be essential to sustaining that momentum."
Investors today are looking at a pipeline that is largely in place, with jobs already arriving on the ground, against a backdrop of regulatory debate that will decide how much of it is actually built. (TF)
