Around the World in EVs

Around the World in EVs — for 2019 and Beyond

Evs In The News

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Jan 2020 NEWSLETTER

Around the World in EVs — for 2019 and Beyond

The global auto industry is in the midst of a significant decline, with sales expected to slide by about 3.1 million by the end of 2019. One bright spot? Electric vehicles, with steady overall sales and a bright future (as in $225 billion in committed investments from automakers). We’re taking a tour around the three largest EV markets to see if 2019 really was the year of the EV.

United States

Through three quarters of 2019, InsideEVs estimates sales of 244,259 plug-in EVs, though the number is likely higher due to manufacturer under-reporting of sales statistics.

The Department of Energy reported that as of May, the U.S. had more than 20,000 EV charging stations with more than 68,800 connectors.

Electrify America’s nationwide charging network continues to grow. According to Car and Driver, there are more than 340 lives stations in the U.S., with another 130 constructed and waiting to be energized by utility companies.

Tesla’s Model 3 continued to impress, with sales tripling between January and September. Clean Technica reports 78% of EV sales in October were Tesla models. And Elon Musk continued to demonstrate his news-making instincts with the debut of the somewhat polarizing cybertruck.

In California, EVs and plug-in hybrid sales increased nearly 8% during the first three quarters of the year, according to the Los Angeles Times.

China

China continues to dominate the world’s largest electric car market. According to an AlixPartners’ global survey of customer demand for EVs, as many as 73% of buyers in China indicated their next car would be electric.

China accounted for 28% of global EV investments, even as the country’s overall auto market is in its third year of decline. EVs and other new energy vehicles sold markedly better in the first half of the year, before similarly declining in more recent months.

The overall decline in EV sales is generally attributed to significant rollbacks in EV incentives, despite the country’s overall goal of 7 million in annual sales for new energy vehicles by 2025. According to CNN Business, those rollbacks are a strategy authorities are using to weed out weaker competitors in a flooded market. As of March, 486 new energy vehicle manufacturers were registered in China.

Europe

InsideEVs reports healthy sales for plug-in vehicles in Europe. Data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association shows 382,836 new passenger plug-in cars were registered in the European Union plus EFTA (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland) through the third quarter, and increase of more than 38% over last year.

Thanks to generous incentives, Norway has long been the European leader in EV sales with a market share close to 60%. But Germany — a country with a population roughly 16 times larger than Norway’s — has finally caught up. As of the end of November, Germany’s 57,533 EVs sales slightly edged out Norway’s 56,893 sales.

According to Forbes, some forecasters are questioning whether the commitments European automakers have made to EVs are realistic. Volkswagen has announced aims to have EVs represent 40% of its global sales by 2030, and both Mercedes and BMW have also set ambitious goals. These lofty objectives are driven by the European Union, whose regulations effectively mean the majority of car sales must be electric by 2030.