More and more French people have already decarbonized their mode of transport, as COP31 bets on electrification to limit the impact of fossil fuels. Once the vehicle has been purchased and the technology has reached maturity, those who have taken the plunge say they do not regret it.
Before getting behind the wheel, many motorists dread giving up habits inherited from combustion engines. Range, journey times, purchase cost: these reservations end up falling away one after another.
The network of charging points has changed scale. It had barely more than 30,000 charging points in 2020, compared with nearly 200,000 today, according to the Ministry for Ecological Transition. At the start of the decade, the equipment remained far more sparsely distributed across the country.
New-car sales are advancing more quickly. In September 2026, electric models accounted for 42% of new-vehicle registrations in the country, according to franceinfo. The gap between this flow and the share of the fleet measures the time needed to renew the stock.
The vehicles on the road, however, tell the story of a transition that is still unfinished. As of January 1, 2026, electric vehicles accounted for only 3.5% of the fleet on the road in France, according to data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition. The road ahead remains long.
The purchase price long constituted the main obstacle. In 2024, an electric Citroën C3 or Peugeot 208 cost 10,000 euros more than its combustion-engine equivalent, according to Ademe.