Volewica

Thursday, June 11, 2026

Plug-ins now one quarter of new car sales

Plugin vehicle registrations were up 9% year over year (YoY) in April, ending the month at around 1.6 million units. Interestingly, BEVs (+19% YoY) and PHEVs (-9% YoY) behaved very differently, with pure electrics back to double-digit growth while plugin hybrids remained in the red. This is the first time since 2019 that PHEVs remained in the red for four consecutive months.
This meant that, while the plugin YTD numbers are barely positive (+1% YoY), that is solely due to the PHEV blues (-10% YoY), because BEVs are already on the way back to normal (+7%).
And the different dynamics between pure electrics and plugin hybrids are reflected in the BEV vs. PHEV share of plugin sales — in April, BEVs represented 72% of all plugin sales, or about 1.15 million units, one of the best results of the past few years. That led the YTD breakdown to be 70% vs. 30% in favour of pure electrics, which is touching the ceiling of BEV share of the past 12 years. Since 2014, BEVs have floated between 70% and 50% of the total plugin share.
With numbers out of the red zone, it is undeniable that globally, this year started slow. But there is one easy explanation for this — incentives. Or the end of them.
The end of US incentives last October, added to the partial removal of incentives in China at the end of 2025, had an expected impact, as these are the 3rd and 1st largest EV markets, respectively.
Actually, if we remove China and the USA from the tally, EVs jumped 50% YoY globally in April, with BEVs surging +63% YoY, their highest growth rate since June 2023.
Funny enough, PHEVs are also underperforming in this metric, as the 23% PHEV growth rate in April, excluding China and the USA, is the lowest for the technology in over a year. It is starting to look like PHEVs’ current slowdown is more structural than expected….
Just because certain media-friendly markets are down, that doesn’t mean that all markets are down.
Here are a few examples of fast growing markets:
BEVs jumped 157% in Australia, to 16% share;
In Italy, BEVs surged +99% YoY, bringing their share to 9%;
In Argentina, BEVs experienced exponential growth, going from less than 100 units in April 2025 to over 1.300 units last month;
As for Ireland, BEVs doubled their sales to 3,000 units, or 27% share;
In South Korea, BEVs surged 160% YoY, to 36,000 units, or 24% share;
In Vietnam, BEVs tripled to 26,000 units, or 43% share;
As for Japan, BEVs more than doubled their sales YoY, to 7,000 units, or 2% share;
In Indonesia, EV sales were up 93% to 15,000 units, or 18% share;
Finally, in Malaysia, BEVs jumped 104% YoY to 6,000 units, or 8% share;
So, Keep Calm and Carry On — the EV revolution is in good health, and with what is happening in the Middle East, ICE vehicle sales are going to melt even faster.

The charts below use CleanTechnica's data, but my seasonal adjustment and trend-fitting.

The slowdown in global sales can be clearly seen, as well as the recent pick-up as the Iran War drives people to buy EVs and PHEVs.

Trump's approval in freefall

From YouGov America

NEW Economist/YouGov Over the past three weeks, Donald Trump has averaged a -25 net job approval, a record-low three-week average for either Trump term yougov.com/en-us/articl...

Why doesn't Trump care? One, he's senile. Or two, they are plans underway to prevent the midterm elections in November.

Record winter temperatures in Antarctica

On King George Island the landscape has changed from mostly white to brown, grey and green. Photograph: Luis Muñoz

From The Guardian

Temperatures in the Antarctic climbed above 15C this month, shattering the previous winter heat record for the usually frozen region and raising concerns about the speed of climate breakdown. [Reminder: since this is the Southern Hemisphere, it is mid-winter now, the equivalent of December in the N.H.]
The new winter peak temperature was logged by the Argentinian Esperanza base on the Trinity peninsula on 6 June amid a protracted heatwave, when the maximum daily temperature exceeded zero degrees for three consecutive weeks.
Scientists said the high of 15.4C broke the previous record set at the same station in 1998 by 2C. “This is absolutely crazy,” said Raúl Cordero, an Ecuadorian climate professor at the University of Groningen. “It is also about 20C above normal for this time of the year. That is a huge anomaly.”
Unusually strong warm winds from the north blew across much of the Antarctic peninsula. One Chilean weather station, Boonen Rivera, registered temperatures of close to 13C, Cordero said.
On King George Island, 100 miles (160km) from Esperanza, researchers said the landscape had changed from mostly white to brown, grey and green after temperatures hit 4.6C on 6 June.
“Last weekend was very strange. The temperatures here went very high so everything outside melted,” said Luis Muñoz, a Chilean glaciologist. “Usually there is 20cm of snow and a lot of ice on the ground at this time.”
Muñoz said he and a colleague, Natalia Mestre, climbed to the 500-metre peak of the nearby Collins glacier last Wednesday and were surprised to find rain melting the ice. “There was a direct impact on the glacier, which should be receiving snow now. It should not be suffering ablation at this time of the year. This is obviously not good for the glacier.”
The Antarctic region is coming under increasing human pressure, directly in the form of resource exploration and tourism and indirectly through the burning of fossil fuels, which is heating the planet.
Scientists warn that some of the region’s biggest glaciers, such as Thwaites and Pine Island, are approaching or may even have passed a tipping point that could push up global sea levels by four metres. Antarctic ice melt has also been found to slow global ocean circulation.
Cordero said a single winter of heatwaves, no matter how amazing, would not by itself make a huge difference to sea levels, but it signified more alarming long-term trends. “This heatwave happened because of extremely strong westerlies,” he said. “This has been happening with increasing frequency since the 1980s, and that is known to be related to climate change.”

We are doing too little to slash emissions. We need to do it as soon as possible, not in 10 or 20 years' time. In almost every country around the world, the combination of wind, solar and batteries is as cheap as or cheaper than coal and much cheaper than gas. EVs, outside the US and Europe, are as cheap as petrol/diesel cars, and obviously much cheaper to run as well. It's a marriage made in heaven: clean electricity to drive your vehicle fleet, and a huge mobile battery resource which helps stabilise the grid. Let's just do it, instead of phaffing around.