In an effort to bolster this traction, France offered nearly 7,800 euros in EV purchase incentives as of the first quarter of 2023, including 2,773 euros in purchase tax reduction. However, while the French government is increasing its efforts to make EVs more attractive to consumers, the market still faces several challenges. This lead to France ranking ninth on a European electric vehicle readiness index in 2022, sharing the same score as Denmark and Portugal.
Charging access is one of the barriers to the market
BEV sales increased in France in 2022, reaching nearly 219,800 units. In contrast, PHEV sales decreased by 10.35 percent year-over-year. As the number of electric vehicles increases, investments in the charging infrastructure could help France to accommodate the eventual energy needs of a fully electric fleet. In 2022, there were around 82,100 public EV chargers in France distributed across 30,352 charging stations—up by nearly 53 percent year-over-year. Most of these were alternating current chargers, which tended to be slower than their direct current counterparts, and were located in the Ile-de-France region, where Paris is situated.The accessibility of public charging is an ongoing global issue, with 34 percent of global survey respondents mentioning the lack of charging stations in their city or route as the key inhibitor to EV purchase. In France, 54 percent of participants in a November 2021 survey reported being poorly informed about how to charge their EVs. Most of the public EV chargers in France were reported to be easily accessed along roadways—in contrast to consumer self-reported access in which only 23 percent of respondents reported having convenient access to EV charging at the time of the survey. Only 13 percent of survey participants reported access to private home chargers or chargers at their workplace.