Huge global disparities in ownership of electric cars, shows study

Europe and China dominate the world market for electric cars, but there are still very few electrified vehicles on the roads in large markets like Russia, South America and Africa, according to a study by the Munich Mobility Show.

 

Europe sold more new electrif­ied vehicles than China for the first time in 2020 and between them the two markets are home to more than 70 per cent of the 9.9 million electrified cars sold so far, the study shows.

 

Sales of electric and plug-in hy­brid cars in the European Union almost trebled to over 1 million ve­h­icles last year, accounting for over 10 per cent of overall sales.

 

The Munich Mobility Show — the revamped and expanded successor to the Frankfurt auto show, slated to be held in September — examined vehicle registration data from a number of sources and found that through 2020, China had 4.2 electric vehicles on the road, Europe had 3.2 million and the United States had 1.7 million.

 

New electric vehicle sales rose in all major markets in 2020 despite the pandemic, except for the US market where sales fell 6 per cent.

 

While 80 per cent of the electrified vehicles sold so far in China and 79 per cent of those sold in the US were battery electric models, only 54 per cent of those sold in Europe — including the European Union, European Free Trade Asso­ciation countries and the United Kingdom — were battery electric, as the continent is still fairly reliant on sales of plug-in hybrids.