The Eni Enrico Mattei Foundation warns: also with the 2025 incentives, the objectives of the National Energy Plan at 2030 are unreachable.
On the one hand it is true that the electric car market in Italy is finally showing acceleration signs. But, as mentioned, it is not enough. According to the data, in the first seven months of 2025 the registrations reached 50,539 units, marking an increase of +29% compared to the same period of 2024 and conquering a market share of 5.2%.
Lens of 4.3 million electric vehicles
However, according to the Eni Enrico Mattei Foundation, this growth is not enough to fill the gap with the ambitious targets set by the integrated National Plan Energy and Climate (PNIEC) and the European Union.
The PNIEC updated in 2024 provides that 4.3 million electrical cars circulate by 2030 on the Italian roads. But the current numbers tell another story: according to the estimates of Antonio Sileo, director of the Feem Sustainable Mobility program, also assuming to exceed 90,000 registrations in 2025, the circulating park would reach less than 370,000 electric cars: a very far from that imposed by the EU.
Car incentives 2025, 597 million for 39,000 vehicles
The government has put 597 million euros on the table for new car incentives, announced by the Minister of the Environment and Energy Safety Gilberto Pichetto Fratin. The estimated impact: 39,000 additional electric vehicles purchased by June 2026. But be careful: there is no exclusively talk of cars, but also of other vehicles. A drop in the sea compared to the hundreds of thousands of units needed to respect PNIEC.
Because Italy is late on the car plan
The problem, Feem underlines, is not only cheap but structural. Italy is the second European car market circulating after Germany, but the penetration of electric vehicles is slowed down by a series of factors:
- high cost of purchase even after incentives;
- Charging infrastructures still insufficient and poorly distributed in the area;
- perception of poor autonomy and long charging times;
- poor information on real long -term economic advantages.
These aspects have been analyzed in the Working Paper “What Hinders Electric Vehicle Diffusion? Insights from a Neural Network Approach”, where Feem researchers used a model of neural networks to identify the main obstacles to the diffusion. The conclusions: the only policies based on classic car incentives are not enough: integrated strategies are needed that act on several fronts, from the production of renewable energy to the strengthening of infrastructures.
Antonio Sileo warns:
In the coming years the number of electrical cars, also in Italy, even without incentives, will grow significantly, but it is useless to expect miracles. Precisely for this reason it is to be expected that the discussion on the EU regulations for the automotive manufacturers, who will come alive in the coming months, will be characterized by greater realism
In other words, Brussels could review the times or rigidity of the objectives to adapt them to the reality of the national markets. For years now, on the other hand, both the manufacturers and the conservative political forces have asked the European Commission to expand the shirts regarding the EU plan for electric cars.
The manufacturers are crushed between the anvil and the hammer: on the one hand there is the very strong Chinese competition, on the other hand the stringent EU demands asking to compress the production of cars with a burst engine to push the electric motor.
