Cars of 2,000 kg or More Rose From 5.7% to 16.5% of New EU Registrations

Cars weighing 2,000 kg or more took 16.5% of new car registrations in the European Union in 2025, up from 5.7% in 2020, according to Radial Insights analysis of the European Environment Agency's vehicle-level CO2 monitoring data. In absolute terms, the heavy segment grew from 564,830 cars to about 1.76 million, a 3.1-fold increase in a market whose total size barely moved (9.97 million registrations in 2020, 10.64 million in 2025).

Battery-electric cars explain most of the shift: they made up 51.4% of the heavy segment in 2025, against 11.3% in 2020. For the tire industry the implication is concrete. A growing slice of the EU car parc rides on tires sized and load-rated for vehicles above 2,000 kg, and the first UN limits on tire abrasion start to bite on new tire types from mid-2028, while those cars are still on their first or second set of replacement tires.

One in six new EU cars now weighs 2,000 kg or more

The EEA dataset records every new car registered in the EU with its mass in running order, which under EU type-approval rules includes fluids and an allowance for the driver. Weighting each model by its registrations gives a clean, annual view of how heavy the new-car mix has become. The 2,000 kg line matters because it is roughly where passenger cars start to need tires with load capacity well above what a typical compact hatchback uses.

The share crossed 10% in 2022 and reached 12.8% in 2023. It paused at 13.0% in 2024, the year battery-electric registrations fell after Germany ended its EV purchase bonus in December 2023, and then jumped by 3.5 percentage points to 16.5% in 2025.

Year	New EU27 cars	Cars at 2,000 kg or more	Share of registrations	Battery-electric share of the heavy segment	Battery-electric share of all registrations
2020	9,971,096	564,830	5.7%	11.3%	5.4%
2021	9,732,312	764,012	7.9%	26.1%	9.1%
2022	9,288,908	990,734	10.7%	41.9%	12.2%
2023	10,590,594	1,357,845	12.8%	49.8%	14.7%
2024	10,644,020	1,386,305	13.0%	45.4%	13.6%
2025 (provisional)	10,640,714	1,759,195	16.5%	51.4%	17.6%

The weight distribution has moved as a block, not only at the top. Cars under 1,250 kg fell from 26.4% of registrations in 2020 to 16.9% in 2025. Cars of 2,250 kg or more, which in practice means large SUVs, premium EVs and plug-in hybrids, rose from 2.0% to 5.9%, or from 200,922 units to 631,490.

Battery-electric cars supplied 51% of the heavy segment in 2025

Of the 1.76 million heavy cars registered in 2025, 904,652 were battery-electric, compared with 63,800 in 2020. Plug-in hybrids added another 4.3% of total registrations to the heavy segment, so cars with a charging plug accounted for 77.6% of all new EU cars at 2,000 kg or more, up from 41.0% in 2020.

Two forces stacked on top of each other. First, battery-electric cars took a larger share of the market, from 5.4% of EU27 registrations in 2020 to 17.6% in 2025. Second, the average new battery-electric car got heavier: 1,680 kg in 2020, 1,881 kg in 2023 and 1,954 kg in 2025, a gain of about 275 kg. In 2020 only 11.8% of new battery-electric cars weighed 2,000 kg or more. In 2025 the figure was 48.2%.

The gap between a new battery-electric car and a new petrol car widened from 377 kg in 2020 to 557 kg in 2025. Put differently, the average new EV in 2025 was 39.9% heavier than the average new petrol car. The recent flattening of EV mass (1,948 kg in 2024, 1,954 kg in 2025) reflects more small and mid-size electric models entering the mix, but the level is now set close to the 2,000 kg line.

Diesel and petrol cars also got heavier, so the trend is not only about batteries

Combustion cars did not stand still. The average new petrol car, a category that in this dataset also covers full hybrids without a plug, rose from 1,303 kg to 1,397 kg between 2020 and 2025. The average new diesel car rose from 1,606 kg to 1,791 kg, a gain of about 185 kg, as diesel retreated from small cars into large SUVs and premium models.

That retreat shows up clearly in the heavy segment. Diesel registrations fell from about 3.02 million in 2020 to 1.28 million in 2025, yet the number of diesel cars at 2,000 kg or more rose from 273,483 to 298,378. In 2020, 9.1% of new diesel cars crossed the 2,000 kg line. In 2025, 23.4% did. Heavy combustion cars as a group grew 18% over the period, from 333,413 to 394,785 units.

For tire suppliers this matters because the heavy segment is now made of two different customer types. One is large combustion SUVs and premium sedans, where high-load and high-speed fitments have been standard for years. The other is mid-market electric cars that are heavy because of the battery, not because of size or performance, and whose owners shop for replacement tires in mainstream price tiers.

Denmark and Sweden are near 50%, while Italy and France stay below 8%

The national picture is uneven. In Denmark, 49.9% of new cars registered in 2025 weighed 2,000 kg or more, up from 2.0% in 2020, and 93.4% of those heavy cars were battery-electric. Sweden reached 48.0% (from 13.8%). Belgium (27.6%), the Netherlands (26.9%), Germany (23.8%) and Austria (23.7%) form a second group in which roughly one new car in four is heavy.

Germany is the volume center. Its 661,145 heavy registrations in 2025 were 38% of the EU total, and 48.1% of them were battery-electric. At the other end, Italy (6.9%), France (7.6%) and Spain (8.7%) remain small-car markets, though each roughly tripled its heavy share from 2020. In France, where the heavy segment is small, 65.9% of it was already battery-electric in 2025, compared with 23.9% in Italy.

The split maps onto tire demand. A distributor in Copenhagen or Stockholm now sells into a parc where heavy EV fitments are becoming the default, while a distributor in Milan still sells mostly into compact-car sizes, with the heavy tail dominated by combustion SUVs.

Tire abrasion limits start in mid-2028, and the heavy share is still rising

Regulation is catching up with the weight trend. The EU's Euro 7 regulation, Regulation (EU) 2024/1257, which entered into force on 28 May 2024, sets tire abrasion requirements from 1 July 2028 for new types of C1 tires (passenger car tires), from 1 April 2030 for new types of C2 tires and from 1 April 2032 for new types of C3 tires. The test method and limits sit in a new UN regulation, UN Regulation No. 186 on tire abrasion, adopted at the 199th session of the UNECE World Forum (WP.29) in June 2026. Stage 1 applies to new C1 tire types from mid-2028 and to all types from 30 June 2030. A tighter Stage 2 follows for new types in 2033 and all types from 30 June 2035.

The UNECE has estimated that the first limits could cut overall tire abrasion by more than 10% and push out about 30% of the higher-abrasion tires sold in Europe and Japan, according to an account of the decision published by The Pew Charitable Trusts in July 2026. Work on heavier vehicle classes is slower: a C2 test method document was pushed to February 2027, and a C3 limits proposal is targeted for September 2029, according to the European Rubber Journal.

Meanwhile the vehicle mix keeps moving. ACEA's figures released on 22 October 2026 show that battery-electric cars took 22.7% of EU registrations in January to September 2026, up from 16.1% a year earlier, with 1,931,465 units, up 48.5%. If the 2025 relationship between EV share and vehicle mass holds, the heavy share of new EU cars in 2026 is likely to rise again. The EEA's provisional 2026 data will not be published until mid-2027, so that remains a projection, not a measured result.

What heavier new cars mean for tire makers, compounders, distributors and OEMs

Tire makers. The abrasion test is run on tires, not vehicles, but the products that sell into this segment must combine high load capacity, low rolling resistance for EV range and acceptable wear. Heavier cars put more load on each tire, which tends to raise wear. Brands with a deep range of high-load, large-rim sizes that already sit well inside the expected abrasion limits will have an advantage when Stage 1 applies to all types in 2030.

Raw-material buyers and compounders. Wear-resistant tread compounds rely on high-surface-area fillers, functionalized synthetic rubbers and tighter process control. Rising volumes of heavy fitments shift demand toward these grades, and the 2028 to 2030 window is when tire makers will lock in compound specifications for the next product generation.

Distributors and retailers. Cars registered in 2023 to 2025, when the heavy share went from 12.8% to 16.5%, will move into their first and second replacement cycles over the next few years. Stocking plans built on the 2020 size mix will under-supply heavy fitments, especially in Nordic, Benelux and German markets where one new car in four or more is above 2,000 kg.

Vehicle manufacturers. OEMs choose the original fitment, and that choice anchors much of the first replacement purchase. With abrasion limits on the horizon, OEM tire specifications for heavy EVs will have to weigh wear and particle emissions alongside range and noise.

Investors. The data point to a mix shift toward higher-value, larger-rim tires even in a flat EU car market. Total registrations were 10.64 million in 2025, little changed from the 10.59 million recorded in 2023, while the heavy segment grew by about 400,000 units over the same two years.

Radial Insights covers the segments affected in its Europe passenger car tires market report, its EV-specific tires market study, the SUVs and light trucks tires market report and the Germany tire market outlook.

Methodology and sources

All vehicle-mass figures are Radial Insights calculations from the EEA monitoring datasets for new passenger cars, queried on 26 October 2026 through the EEA Discodata service. We used the final datasets for 2020 to 2024 and the provisional dataset for 2025, filtered to the 27 EU member states, weighted each record by its registration count and used mass in running order. Powertrain groups follow the EEA fuel-type field: "electric" for battery-electric cars, "petrol/electric" and "diesel/electric" for plug-in hybrids. The EEA headline figures for 2025 (10.8 million cars and an 18.9% battery-electric share) also include Iceland and Norway, which is why they differ from the EU27 totals here. The 2025 data are provisional and may be revised in the final release.

• EEA Discodata SQL service: vehicle-level registration and mass data, tables for 2020 to 2025, used for every mass, share and country figure.
• EEA catalogue record, CO2 emissions from passenger cars, 2021 final: dataset definitions and Discodata access method.
• EEA catalogue record, 2023 final and 2025 provisional: table versions used.
• EEA news release, June 2026: headline 2025 registrations and battery-electric share including Iceland and Norway.
• ACEA press release, 22 October 2026: January to September 2026 EU registrations and powertrain shares.
• European Parliament Legislative Observatory summary of Regulation (EU) 2024/1257 (Euro 7): tire abrasion application dates for C1, C2 and C3 tires and entry into force.
• GlobalAutoRegs, UN Regulation No. 186 notification: WP.29 adoption in June 2026 and Stage 1 and Stage 2 dates.
• The Pew Charitable Trusts, July 2026: UNECE estimates of the abrasion cut and share of tires affected.
• European Rubber Journal, September 2026: timetable for C2 and C3 abrasion work.