More and more Swiss plugging in e-cars

An e-car being charged in Basel © Keystone / Georgios Kefalas

The number of new registrations of electronic cars more than doubled in Switzerland in 2019, according to statistics released on Friday.

There were more than six million motor vehicles on Swiss roads last year, up 0.8% on 2018. Of the 312,900 cars that were newly registered, around 13,200, or 4.2%, were battery-operated e-cars. Hybrid cars also saw an increase in new registrations of 70.9% on 2018.

“This means that new registrations of electric cars increased substantially year-on-year (+143.9%) while the number of petrol-driven cars showed only a slight increase (+1.9%) and diesel cars once again saw a clear decline (-11.9%),” said the Federal Statistical Office in a statementExternal link.

E-cars have been gaining in popularity over the past two decades: in 2000, there were just 754 in use. In 2019, this had risen to 28,716, taking into account new and older vehicles.

Zug top of the e-car pops

You’ll find the most people driving e-cars in the economically strong canton of Zug, the statistical office saidExternal link, followed by canton Zurich. The lowest levels are in the central Swiss canton of Uri and in canton Jura.

The figurestally with the importer association Auto-Schweiz’s findings published at the end of 2019, which also recorded a sharp increase in new e-car registrations.

However, the rise is below what the authorities would like: the government said in 2018 that it wanted to increase the proportion of new electric vehicle registration to 15% by 2022.