Abstract The electrification of the road transport sector is seen as a necessary component to the urban decarbonization. A scenario analysis of electric cars deployment is developed by employing the Long-range Energy Alternative Planning platform to build a bottom-up model to evaluate the contribution to the energy transition in the long term. The difference with similar models available in the literature is represented by a detailed description of the car stock, which comprises twenty-eight categories of cars. The car stock is segmented according to the fuel, i.e., petrol and gasoline, engine displacement, i.e., small and medium, and fuel efficiency according to the Euro standard, i.e., from Euro 0 to Euro 6d. Such features can be applied to any EU country; therefore, the model has a European Union-wise applicability. To show the model effectiveness, an application to the Italian automotive sector focused on the estimation of energy consumption and polluting emissions is proposed in the period 2018–2030. The evolution of the Italian car stock and the corresponding energy consumption, emissions and externalities are estimated. The simulations show that a significant reduction in energy consumption up to 23% and a decrease of emissions is realistically achievable through the deployment of electric cars.