In practice, it has once again been clearly confirmed that government support plays a significant role in the purchase of electric vehicles, which ended last autumn and resumed this spring, as well as the trend that there is and continues to be significant demand for used electric vehicles among Latvian buyers. Publicly available data indicates that 67.5% of the electric vehicles registered in the first half of this year were used cars: 1,750 used and 843 new electric vehicles were registered. Last autumn, demand for electric vehicles significantly decreased, largely due to the completion of the EKII support program (Latvia's Emission Quota Auction Instrument) after the allocated support volume was exhausted. Currently, the electric vehicle market has significantly revived and resumed growth, as the updated and expanded EKII-2 government co-financing program started in spring. The goal of the program is to continue reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the transport sector by introducing environmentally friendly vehicles in Latvia. This time, €40 million has been allocated for this purpose. By August 31, 33% of the funds allocated by the government for the co-financing program had already been used, amounting to €13,192,610. The available funding for supporting environmentally friendly transport, which most often refers specifically to electric vehicles, currently amounts to €26,807,390. Local market experts estimate that this amount could last until April 2027. According to vehicle registration data, the most popular electric vehicle in the first half of 2026 was the "Toyota bZ4X" (Japan) with 97 registrations, followed by the "BYD Sealion 7" (China) with 74 and the "Lynk & Co 02" (China) with 52 registrations. The top five most popular models also included the "Renault 5 E-Tech Electric" (France) with 43, as well as the "Tesla Model Y" (USA) with 30 registrations. In the segment of used electric vehicles, models from "Tesla" (USA) confidently dominated. The most registered was the "Tesla Model S" with 167 vehicles, followed by the "Tesla Model 3" with 139, and then the "Tesla Model Y" with 109 registrations. The top five was rounded out by 83 "Volkswagen ID.4 Pro 150 kW" and 65 "Audi e-tron 55."
