The transition to and electrification of the vehicle fleet in Europe is progressing more slowly than anticipated by major manufacturers and European institutions. After a fantastic 2020 that spurred major manufacturers to accelerate the electrification of their products, electric car sales cooled during 2021 and 2022 due to a misguided strategy: the leading manufacturers focused their marketing efforts too heavily on electric cars for Europeans, who demanded simple, affordable urban vehicles.

The Nissan Leaf was the first mainstream electric car in history. Introduced in 2010 and marketed from 2011The Leaf quickly became the world's best-selling electric car until the emergence of Tesla and Chinese electric vehicles. In 2017 Nissan introduced a second generation of the Leaf, which despite being better than its predecessor, did not monopolize the market as its predecessor had done.