Here's a global snapshot of what's happening around the world as regards electric car sales.
Starting with China, where the news is astonishing. In 2020, electric vehicles accounted for 5 percent of all new car sales in China. In 2021, the proportion had shot up to 13 percent, blowing every forecast out of the water. For 2022, electric cars are on track to hit more than a quarter of all car sales.
However, it's worth putting that into perspective. While China is by far the largest EV-selling country, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK all had higher EV sales per million people in 2021, says Reuters.
And with more charging stations and purchasing subsidies in the pipeline from governments that are eager to wean the population off expensive and high-emitting fuels, Europe's collective purchasing clout looks set to keep climbing.
In Germany, plugin vehicles hit 28 percent market share in August, and Tesla isn't even in the top five brands by overall sales, reports Clean Technica. The most registered passenger electric car in Germany so far this year? The Fiat 500 electric.
Ford's electric vehicle sales tripled in September, driving an increase of 16 percent in overall deliveries in the latest quarter. The company's increased the price of the electric F-15o twice in the last month. Also, responding to 'overwhelming demand,' the EPA is nearly doubling the money available to states to buy electric models of the iconic yellow school buses that millions of children ride every day.
New York is following in California’s footsteps with a new regulation that requires all new passenger cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs to be zero emissions by 2035. Oh, and electric vehicle charging sites now outnumber petrol stations in Manhattan by ten to one, and are fast approaching parity across all five boroughs.
In the UK, electric cars accounted for 11.6 percent of all new car registrations in 2021, a growth of 92 percent on 2020. In September 2022, new EV sales had a market share of 16.9 percent of all new car registrations.
However, no nation on Earth comes close to Norway where, in June this year, new electric cars sales accounted for 79 percent of all new passenger car registrations for the month. Across all Nordic countries, EVs accounted for more than half of all cars sold in 2021, according to International Energy Agency data.
IEA said global EV sales had doubled in 2021 to represent nearly 9 percent of the car market. Looking forward, 2022 was “expected to see another all-time high for electric vehicle sales, lifting them to 13 percent of total light duty vehicle sales globally.”
The IEA has previously stated that electric vehicle sales hit 6.6 million in 2021. In the first quarter of 2022, EV sales came to 2 million, a 75% increase compared to the first three months of 2021.
The Great American Road Trip to be Fully Electrified: EVs are catching on more than ever, but charging stations are still necessary for people to be able to enjoy the same freedom of movement with EVs as they have with gas-powered cars for the past century. To facilitate this, the U.S. Department of Transportation has announced the approval of EV charging stations for all 50 states, for a network that will cover 75,000 miles of highway. Read on...