[bausson]

Shorter distances is a good argument, but there also others differences which aren't advantage.

Most of my observations are from France, since it's where I live, but it should be correct for Germany, Spain, UK at least.

Plus :

* shorter distances

* higher gas price in EU than US

Minus :

* people usually commute by public transportation. In big cities, they don't even own a car. There is no place to park it, and it's kinda useless, since it take longer to go somewhere by car than by public transport.

* For medium distance (100~1000 km), people use both car and train. It's maybe 50/50, depending on the need of car at destination. You are always more independent by car, but by train you arrive quicker, and rested (a good rail network helping).

* On the 'social' side of things, the car ownership is not a thing the way it is in america (or is it a generation thing / Hollywood exaggeration, I don't know). European young adult buy a car when they need one, not as soon as possible to show they can support themselves.

[toomuchtodo]

I agree with all you points.

RE: "* On the 'social' side of things, the car ownership is not a thing the way it is in america (or is it a generation thing / Hollywood exaggeration, I don't know). European young adult buy a car when they need one, not as soon as possible to show they can support themselves."

This used to be the case, but both car ownership and young adults obtaining driver's licenses has been on the decline for the last decade.

EDIT: LINKS! Because data.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/10/end-car-own...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/05/young-ameri...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/sunday-review/the-end-of-c...

[erikpukinskis]

None of those are EV specific, they are just reasons the car market in Europe would be small. Rather than speculate about all the causes I thought I would just look it up:

In 2013, there were 12 million¹ vehicles registered in the EU out of 733 million people. And in the U.S. there were 15 million² sales out of 315 million people.

So it looks like Europe is buying cars at about a third the rate of Americans.

¹ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/business/international/car...

² http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/03/news/companies/car-sales/

[bausson]

Just to get your numbers straight: EU => 507 million people.

Also, when you look graph ², you can wonder how much of that is due to recession.

(found at random via google search, so I don't know how trustable it is, but seems legit. : http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html )

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

² http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gzzddTbQ7Mg/TtfoT07ehTI/AAAAAAAALe... (via ³)

³ http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html

Nonetheless, your point is still valid, European buy less car per person.