EVs and PHEVs now 18% of world car sales

From CleanTechnica

Global plugin vehicle registrations were up 25% in April 2024 compared to April 2023. There were 1.2 million registrations. BEVs were up by 14% YoY, while plugin hybrids jumped 51% YoY.

In the end, plugins represented 18% share of the overall auto market (12% BEV share alone). This means that the global automotive market remains in the Electric Disruption Zone.

Year to date, plugin electric vehicle market share was up by 1%, to 17% (11% BEV).

Full electric vehicles (BEVs) represented 65% of plugin registrations in April, pulling the year-to-date tally to 64% share.

Globally, BYD is now way ahead of Tesla with a 20.7% market share, compared with Tesla's 7.6% (though Tesla makes no plug-in hybrids).  Part of the reason for the slowing growth shown in the chart below is because Tesla's sales are going backwards.  Partly it's because EV sales in Europe have temporarily stopped growing, which in turn is partly due to Germany cancelling all EV buying incentives.    Over the last 12 months, Germany made up 27% of Europe's car registrations.  Over 2021 & 2022, Europe's EV/PHEV sales grew by 180%, so this slow-down is perhaps to be expected.  

The collapse in battery costs will drive EV costs lower, and sales will pick up.  Growth rates fell in 2019 and 2020, when China removed EV incentives and Covid lockdowns crushed sales, but they recovered strongly in 2021 and 2022.  EV/PHEV sales in China have already started to accelerate again, so I feel reasonably confident forecasting a 30% per annum growth rate for the next couple of years.   

 In 2017, when EV/PHEV sales were just 2% of global car sales, I forecast that EV/PHEV car sales would reach 40% of global car sales this year.  But Covid delayed that schedule by a couple of years.   And US and European tariffs on EVs and batteries will also slow the transition down some more.  We prolly won't reach 40% for another two and a half years (extrapolating a 30% per annum growth rate).  On the other hand, most analysts were forecasting much lower numbers, because they were extrapolating the trend linearly, instead of exponentially. 

For legacy car makers, this point is key: EV growth was exponential, and their puny forecasts meant they kept on scrambling to catch up.  BYD is the world's biggest EV/PHEV manufacturer.  It's just produced an EV costing less than US$10,000.  An EV this cheap will accelerate EV take up.  S-curves rule.   For me, I didn't allow for Covid.  I'll try harder next time.