Plug-ins now one quarter of new car sales

 From CleanTechnica

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.  

 

Share of EVs by country

From Visual Capitalist 

Click on the chart to see a clearer image.
I hate the way Blogger does this.

In 2019, electric vehicles were still a niche purchase in most countries, accounting for single-digit shares of new car sales.

By 2025, EVs had moved from niche to dominant in several markets. In Norway, EVs were estimated to make up 97% of new car sales, meaning nearly every new car sold was electric. Several other countries crossed the 50% threshold, and in China, EVs made up more than half of all new car sales in the world’s largest auto market.

This infographic highlights how EV sales share has evolved between 2019 and 2025. The data for this visualization come from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Ember. EVs include both battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). Sales figures for 2025 are estimates.

Taken together, the data shows how quickly EV adoption has moved from early adoption to mainstream across much of the global auto market.

China's ICEV sales peaked in 2017

 (ICEV = internal combustion engined vehicle)

From Our World in Data

Electric cars have become incredibly popular in China. In 2020, one in eighteen new cars sold was electric. By 2024, this had increased to one in two.

This growth has pushed down sales of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, which run mostly on petrol. As you can see in the chart, sales of ICE cars peaked in 2017 and have declined since.

The world reached peak ICE car sales just one year later.

The displacement of petrol cars with electric ones is vital in decarbonizing transport. The rise of electric vehicles in China means the IEA expects oil demand to peak earlier than previously projected.

Here, “electric cars” include fully battery-electric ones and plug-in hybrids. In China, 56% of them were fully battery-electric.

Track data on the evolution of electric cars across the world

 My forecast:  EVs and PHEVs will reach 90% market share in China by end 2029.

Extended-range EVs vs plug-in hybrids

In this piece, I mentioned that T&E research shows that plug-in hybrids produce almost as much CO2 emissions as petrol/diesel cars.

The Driven has also covered this report, but it added some detail about EREVs (extended-range electric vehicles) 

Extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs), like PHEVs, also rely on a combustion engine for their extended range, though they use a series configuration, which means that the combustion engine only ever recharges the battery and never provides power to the wheels directly.

According to T&E, EREVs usually have larger batteries than PHEVs and can therefore provide a longer electric-only range. This means that the combustion engine used for generating electricity is smaller than that found in a PHEV, since it does not need to provide power to the wheels.

However, even though EREVs can drive up to 900 kilometres, they are nevertheless still consuming 6.7 [6.4] litres of fuel per 100 kilometres when in combustion mode – similar to some European petrol SUVs.

One would expect a car running on a petrol engine to use almost as much fuel whether it's charging a battery or driving the wheels directly, so the fact that in combustion mode EREVs are still consuming 6.4 litres per 100 kilometres (45 mpg in the UK) isn't surprising, nor is it an argument against EREVs.  The critical number is how often the petrol engine has to run, in proportion to all the kilometres driven.  An ICEV would use petrol for every kilometre, plug-in hybrids, it turns out, use petrol most of the time, but EREVs only use petrol 30% of the time.

The chart below shows T&E's analysis.

With battery costs plunging, EREVs will be a short-term (5 year?) solution to low EV range and too few chargers.   If you live outside a major city in a big country (USA, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, India, South Africa, for example), EV range, except on the most expensive cars, just isn't enough for longer journeys.  In Europe, with its huge network of chargers, EREVs are prolly a distraction, as T&E maintain.  Elsewhere, while PHEVs are not a solution, EREVs are. 

EVs/PHEVs 31% of German car sales

 From CleanTechnica

September saw plugin EVs at 31.1% share in Germany, up from 23.7% share year-on-year. BEV volume increased by 32% YoY, while PHEVs grew 85%. Overall auto volume was 235,528 units, up some 13% YoY. September’s best-selling BEV was the Volkswagen ID.3.

Since 2024 was a low baseline, let’s look at the YTD progress vs. both 2024 and 2023. Combined plugins are now at 28.4% YTD, with 18.2% BEV and 10.3% PHEV. 2024’s respective figures were 19.3%, with 13.1% BEV and 6.3% PHEV. 2023’s respective figures were 23.9% with 18.1% BEV and 5.8% PHEV.

So although 2025 is looking much better than 2024, with a 9.1% additional share of the market going to plugins, it is only marginally better than the same period in 2023. All of that marginal improvement is down to the growth of PHEVs over the two intervening years.

What’s also different since 2023 is the lack of BEV incentives now (after being cancelled in December of that year). In short, the transition has recovered from that trauma and is now advancing under its own steam (a more robust path than relying on incentives) – and is less vulnerable to future setbacks.

PHEVs are back to a share they last saw in 2021 and 2022, but the difference this time around is that the new generation of PHEVs have an electric range of over 80 km in most cases (vs. mostly under 50 km previously). This generation is thus more likely to contribute to “mostly electric km” of the overall vehicle fleet during their 15+ year lifespan. As Germany’s transition continues over the next couple of years, PHEVs will plateau and then fade away, as they did in Norway.

EV subsidies ended at the end of 2022, hence December 22 spike.

Why emerging markets choose EVs

An interesting video by Energi Media

Developing countries are buying EVs because they're cheap, in essence,  2- and 3-wheelers, buses and now EVs have reduced oil demand by 2 million barrels a day from what it would have been.    Petrol and diesel demand is expected to peak in absolute terms in a couple of years, and has already peaked in China.  That will not mean peak oil demand because of air travel and sea transport.  These are sectors where will need to do more to reduce emissions.

Plug-in hybrids almost as bad as ICEVs

 From The Guardian

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) pump out nearly five times more planet-heating pollution than official figures show, a report has found.

The cars, which can run on electric batteries as well as combustion engines, have been promoted by European carmakers as a way to cover long distances in a single drive – unlike fully electric cars – while still reducing emissions.

Data shows PHEVs emit just 19% less CO2 than petrol and diesel cars, an analysis by the non-profit advocacy group Transport and Environment found on Thursday. Under laboratory tests, they were assumed to be 75% less polluting.

The researchers analysed data from the onboard fuel consumption meters of 800,000 cars registered in Europe between 2021 and 2023. They found real-world carbon dioxide emissions from PHEVs in 2023 were 4.9 times greater than those from standardised laboratory tests, having risen from being 3.5 times greater in 2021.

“Real-world emissions are going up, while official emissions are going down,” said Sofía Navas Gohlke, a researcher at Transport and Environment and the co-author of the report. “This is the gap that is getting worse and it is a real problem. As a result, PHEVs pollute almost as much as petrol cars.”

The researchers attributed most of the gap to overestimates of the “utility factor” – the ratio of miles travelled in electric mode to the total miles travelled – finding that 27% of driving was done in electric mode even though official estimates assumed 84%. The European Commission has announced two corrections to the utility factor ratio that will narrow the gap but not close it entirely, according to the analysis.

Even when the cars were driven in electric mode, the analysis found that levels of pollution were well above official estimates. The researchers said this was because electric motors were not strong enough to operate alone, with their engines burning fossil fuels for almost one-third of the distance travelled in electric mode.

Patrick Plötz, head of energy economics at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, who was not involved in the study, said it was a “very useful contribution” after years in which parts of the automotive industry argued there was too little data to accurately assess real-world emissions.

“The results demonstrate, beyond any doubt, that the gap between official and real-world PHEV fuel consumption and CO2 emissions is much, much larger than for gasoline or diesel cars,” said Plötz, who has published research on the topic. “Any policy changes with respect to PHEVs should be made with utmost care and in the light of that data.”

Hybrid cars have been drawn back into the political debate as carmakers have pressed the EU to weaken CO2 targets. A ban on new combustion engine cars in 2035 has been subject to heavy lobbying from the automotive industry and opposition from member states with large car industries.

“There must not be a drastic cut in 2035,” the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said after a summit last week with the country’s struggling automobile industry, promising to do “everything in [his] power” to achieve that. Other senior German politicians have floated plug-in hybrids as one example of possible “flexibilities” they could introduce to the legislation.

Have European car companies learnt nothing from Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal?  They're still lying to us.   Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) do not use 75% less petrol per kilometre, compared to petrol/diesel cars.  No.  They use just 20% less.  People who bought PHEVs assuming they were doing something about the climate were deceived, deliberately.  Governments were deceived and lied to.  I supported plug-in hybrids because we were told they used 80% less petrol than ICEVs.  And that was a lie.

This is a good point to talk about EREVs:  extended range electric vehicles.  Like hybrids, they have a petrol and an electric motor.  Unlike hybrids, the petrol motor is not connected to the wheels.  Instead, it charges the battery, but only when the battery is nearing empty.  Normally, you would charge your EREV overnight, perhaps, ready for your daytime commute, or over the day from your solar panels.   The 60 or 80 or 100 km range from the battery will be enough for 90% of the time, since most journeys are relatively short.  Only occasionally do you need much more range.  For example, I live in a provincial town.  I rarely drive more than 20 km a day.  However, every 3 months or so, I drive to the big city, which is 180 km away.  Most of the EVs I could afford, don't have enough range to get there, drive around, and get back without recharging.   And many I've spoken to in the town cite this as a reason not to buy an EV.  For us, right now, an EREV would be a good option.  

The Chevrolet Volt was an EREV, and it used the petrol engine so rarely that GM's engineers had to put in an override which forced the petrol engine to turn on every three months, just to keep it working properly.  In their case, the claim that it reduced petrol consumption by 80% was completely plausible.

The authorities should immediately withdraw subsidies for plug-in hybrids, but extend those for EREVs.  In a few years, batteries will be so cheap that range-extenders will not be necessary.  Until then, EREVS  fill a niche.

China Set To Add 62-Mile Minimums For PHEV Range

The great EV shift: 90% by 2030

 From EVCurveFuturist

What if I told you that even with political setbacks, EVs will dominate car sales by 2030? That’s right—despite recent challenges, the road to mass BEV adoption is still clear. Back in 2019, I projected that global BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) sales would reach between 90-95% of total vehicle sales by 2030. This forecast was based on several critical factors: technological improvements, cost reductions, increasing consumer acceptance, and strong policy support from major economies.

However, as we move into 2025, new developments have prompted a reassessment of these projections. While my 2024 forecast was accurate—missing the actual NEV (New Energy Vehicle) final sales figure by just 100,000 units—I have now factored in the ‘Trump effect’ when updating my 2025-2030 outlook.

The ‘Trump effect’—including a 25% tariff on imported EV batteries, reduced federal tax credits, and emissions regulation rollbacks—could raise U.S. EV prices by 10% and slow sales growth by 5%. As the U.S. remains a major automotive market, this impacts global adoption, lowering my projection from 95% to 90% by 2030. However, state initiatives like California’s zero-emission mandates and New York’s infrastructure investments may mitigate these setbacks. Local policies can counteract federal headwinds, keeping the BEV transition on track.

Despite the potential challenges posed by the ‘Trump effect’, strong consumer demand, rapid battery innovation, and international momentum for EV adoption persist. Europe and Asia are doubling down on their commitments to electric mobility, driven by emissions regulations and aggressive electrification targets.

Technological advancements continue to lower the cost of ownership, with new battery technologies like LFP and sodium-ion promising even greater affordability and efficiency. Recent insights from ARK Invest suggest that EV adoption is surpassing traditional S-curve dynamics, indicating a more rapid and expansive growth trajectory. As battery costs decline, EVs become accessible to new consumer segments, sparking fresh waves of adoption. ARK’s analysis highlights that, rather than plateauing, EV adoption is accelerating, driven by overlapping adoption cycles as cost reductions make BEVs increasingly attractive to budget-conscious buyers. According to BloombergNEF, battery costs have fallen from $132/kWh in 2022 to $89/kWh today, with LFP batteries already at $50/kWh in China. Coupled with 500KW global fast chargers expected by 2025 (IEA), the cost and convenience of BEVs are set to dominate new car sales.

Emerging markets like Latin America, India, and Africa face challenges with charging infrastructure, but affordable EVs from brands like BYD and sodium-ion battery tech offer potential solutions. A major driving force here is the desire of everyday people to break free from oil dependency and escape the cycle of petrol price gouging. The economic motivation for energy independence is especially strong in developing regions, where fuel costs can take a significant portion of household income. By transitioning to cheap renewables and EVs, these communities can reduce reliance on volatile oil, coal and gas markets, making electric mobility not just a technological shift but a social and economic liberation. These regions, with their growing demand and focus on cost-effective solutions, could have an edge in reaching 90% adoption by 2030 if infrastructure gaps are addressed.

While the consensus often lands around 50% BEV sales by 2030, I project 90% based on the S-curve formula used to model adoption in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Key factors include battery cost reductions, technological advancements, and the collapse of ICE supply chains. I also foresee that from 2027 onwards, global PHEV sales will begin collapsing. PHEVs have long been viewed as a transitional technology—providing a safety net for those wary of limited range or charging availability. However, advancements in battery density, particularly with LFP and sodium-ion technologies, are rapidly making PHEVs obsolete. As costs drop and range extends, the onboard petrol generator loses its appeal, especially when BEVs offer lower maintenance, running costs, and a simpler powertrain.

From 2027 to 2030, the growth of BEVs will be exceptionally strong for several reasons. First, the maturity of next-gen battery technologies will push prices well below parity with ICE vehicles, making BEVs the obvious financial choice. Second, legacy automakers, facing increasing pressure to electrify, will accelerate their BEV lineups while phasing out hybrids. Lastly, consumer preferences will continue to shift toward pure electric as charging networks expand and EV infrastructure becomes more ubiquitous, reinforcing the idea that hybrids were merely a temporary stepping stone. I wrote more in depth on this subject in Why PHEVs Are Losing Their Shine.

 

[Read more here]

China EV sales stagnant

 August data for China's EV/PHEV/EREV* sales are flat.  That's mostly due to weak overall car registrations (down 9% YoY in August).  But the percentage is also declining, though the latest month shows a tiny uptick.  I seasonally adjust these time series, but because Chinese new year can sometimes be in January and sometimes in February, it's tricky to get entirely reliable seasonal factors.  This has been complicated by multiple Covid lockdowns.   Sometimes the NBS (National Bureau of Statistics) publishes data for one month, sometimes an average for both January and February, and sometimes no data at all for those two months.  I might actually just default to fitting a centred 12-month moving average to the data.  In the meantime, for what it's worth, here are the charts.

*EREV = extended range electric vehicle.  A petrol motor drives a generator which charges the battery when it is empty.  These produce fewer emissions than plug-in hybrids, because plug-in hybrids from some manufacturers use both the electric and the petrol engine to get better performance out of the PHEV.

In China, more than 1 in 2 cars sold is an EV

EV and PHEV sales in China continue to motor ahead.

The first chart shows EV and PHEV sales in absolute terms, seasonally adjusted (by me), and plotted on a log scale.   A log scale shows a time series with a constant growth rate as a straight line.  The line on the chart below has been gradually levelling off, implying that the growth rate trend is gradually slowing.

This is confirmed by the chart below.  There are wild swings over the covid period, but the trend growth rate has slipped to 30% per annum over the last 3 years.  That's still a high growth rate, which would lead to a doubling of EV sales every 3 years.

The growth rate of EVs remains much higher than the growth rate of petrol cars.  In fact, petrol car sales in China peaked in 2018/19, recovered partially after the Covid lockdowns, but have since resumed their decline.  The chart below shows EVs/PHEVs as a percentage of total car registrations.  It is not plotted on a log scale.  Note the occasional spikes, which occur when EV sales go up and total sales go down.  This happens when government incentive schemes change, or when Chinese New Year moves, or simply because of random swings in the time series--one zigging up and the other down in the same month.  (Seasonal adjustment of monthly time series in China is tricky because of the peripatetic new year.)  There is no fundamental reason for the spike in April, or for the decline in May and June, and I expect to see it reversed over the next few months.  EVs will continue to gain market share, because battery prices continue to decline fast, and even despite government attempts to reduce very competitive conditions, EV prices are likely to remain under pressure.

China produces ~1/3rd of the world's cars, and EVs/PHEVs make up more than half of them.  By the end of this year, that ratio will prolly be 60%.   It's worth remembering that in January 2014, only 0.2% of cars sold in China were EVs or PHEVs.  And notice the surge in the percentage of EV sales over the last five years, from 5% to 55%.  (Just a personal note:  most analysts got this acceleration completely wrong.  Prof Ray Wills and Tony Seba got it right.  And luckily, I believed them, so I did too.)  This is a classic S-curve, but it shows no signs of flexing over, yet, though as EV sales head towards 80 or 90% of total sales, that has to be imminent.

[Data sources:  José Pontes at CleanTechnica; Prof Ray Wills, China's NBS (National Bureau of Statistics); my seasonal adjustment (tweaked X-11 variant); my smoothing, using a 13-term Henderson curve.]

China breaks EV records. Again.

 From Electrek

Global EV sales surged in May 2025, hitting 1.6 million units sold, according to the latest data from EV research house Rho Motion. That brings the total for the year so far to 7.2 million EVs, a 28% increase compared to the same period in 2024. [So, we could reach at least 20 million EVs/PHEVs globally by the end of the year, 25% plus of total car sales.]

The big winner: China. The country sold a record-breaking 1 million EVs in May alone. That’s a 33% jump year-over-year, and a 10% boost compared to April. The rest of the world saw solid gains too, but North America lagged far behind, mainly due to slashed incentives in Canada.

Rho Motion’s Charles Lester broke it down: “The story this month with global vehicle sales is the continued chasm between Chinese market growth, which saw 1 million vehicles sold in May, versus the faltering market in North America.”

Let’s take a closer look:

Europe holds steady, with help from Spain and Italy. Europe is up 27% year-to-date, with 1.6 million EVs sold from January through May. Countries like Germany (+45% YTD) and the UK (+32% YTD) are helping lead the way, but southern Europe is really stepping on the accelerator. Spain saw a whopping 72% growth in EV sales so far this year, and Italy isn’t far behind at 58%.

Germany just rolled out a new set of EV incentives focused on commercial fleets. With corporate vehicles making up more than half the German auto market, those tax breaks and special depreciation offers could supercharge sales in the coming months.

North America stalls out. The US, Canada, and Mexico are dragging, with just 3% growth YTD. That’s mostly due to Canada’s pause on EV subsidies, which caused a steep 20% sales drop.

The US is holding on with 4% growth, helped by the federal EV tax credit that remains in place through the end of the year. But those credits may start phasing out in 2026 and disappear by 2027, if Republicans get their way (or kill them even sooner). Expect a late-year bump as buyers rush to cash in while they still can.

China dominates again. China continues to be the EV powerhouse. In May, it became the first country this year to break the 1-million-EVs-sold-in-a-month mark. It first hit that level in August 2024, and it hit the milestone again just ahead of the summer push.

Chinese automakers aren’t slowing down either. BYD is expanding its presence in Europe with new BEVs and plug-in hybrids. Its tiny budget EV, the Dolphin Surf (called the Seagull in China), just launched in Europe with a price tag around $25,000, and it’s not subject to new EU tariffs on Chinese EVs, since it’s a hybrid. [This may be true of the European version, but the Dolphin Surf in the UK is fully electric]

 

 

China's oil demand to fall

In this piece, I talked about how it had taken 15 years for plug-ins to reach 10 million total sales in China, and about how this year, another 10 million would be sold.   The S-Curve in action. The chart below, from Our World in Data, shows the percentage of plug-in (EV and PHEV) cars on the road in China, but it only goes to the end of 2023.  Let's assume, conservatively, that the percentage rose again by 3% during 2024.  This means that plug-in share of the car fleet reached 11% at the end of 2024, and will rise to 22% at the end of 2025.  That means that the demand for oil in China to fuel cars will fall by 11% this year.  That is not the only end-use of China's local and imported oil, because oil is used in petro-chemical manufacture, for heavy-duty vehicles, and for shipping, domestic and foreign.   I don't know how much these are, but at the very least, Chinese oil demand has probably stopped growing.  China contributed much of the growth in global oil demand in the previous 20 years.

This is the impact just in China.  But plug-ins outside the USA have reached price parity with ICEVs.  As they fall in price, their sales will grow faster and faster.   For the world as a whole, plug-ins reached 3% of the car fleet at the end of 2023, so perhaps it reached 4 or 4.5% by end 2024.  It's an S-curve, and will continue to rise exponentially.   

Global oil demand has peaked.  Initially, the decline will be small--1% a year for vehicle fuel, which is about 40% of total oil demand -- but it is likely to accelerate every year thereafter.

China's consumers to buy 10 million plug-ins this year

 From CleanTechnica, with my charts below.

March signals the end of the low season in the Chinese EV market — due to the timing of the New Year celebrations. This year, plugins scored almost a million units in the last month of the quarter (in a 1.9-million-unit overall market). They had a 39% growth rate, a positive outcome in a total market that expanded 12% YoY, especially considering that ICE sales dropped some 76,000 units YoY in March.

ICE deliveries down, EV deliveries up — looking good….

Digging deeper into the numbers, BEVs were the fastest growing technology, going up by 51% to 646,000 units, while PHEVs grew 25% and EREVs grew 4%.

This pulls the year-to-date (YTD) tally to over 2.4 million units. So, we should see plugins end the year well above 10 million units. In China alone….

Share-wise, March saw plugin vehicles cross the 50% market share threshold, reaching 52%! Full electrics (BEVs) alone accounted for 34% of the country’s auto sales, while PHEVs had 27% share and EREVs 8%, making BEVs the best selling powertrain in China, above petrol vehicles and HEVs

This good result in March pulled the 2025 share up by three percentage points, to 48%. BEVs alone also jumped by 3% share, to 30%. Expect to see plugins above 50% and BEVs at around 33% in the first half of the year.

(Could China finish the year above 60%?)[At the current growth rate, yes!]

10 million plug-ins sold to December 2024.  And another 10 million this year.  It took 15 years to get to total cumulative sales of 10 million, and will take just one more year to get to 20!   The energy transition is really speeding up.  Note that these data do not include exports, which are growing even faster.

 

20 million plug-in cars sold in China

 By the end of 2024, there had been 10 million plug-in cars (EV and plug-in hybrids) sold in China.  This year, it looks as if another 10 million will be sold.  It took 14 years to get to the first 10 million, and will likely take just one year to get to the second 10 million.

This fun video shows how the US had the lead in EVs and comprehensively lost it to China.

Oh, and you should prolly sell your oil shares.  Over the last 20 years, China has been responsible for most of the increase in the demand for oil.  Oil demand is going to fall really fast, as EVs bite.

Brazil's EV/PHEV sales up 55%

 From CleanTechnica

EV sales in February grew by 55% year over year in Brazil. The country broke record after record. In 2024, it sold more than 100,000 EVs, making it one of the few countries worldwide to have reached that number. In February 2025, it sold over 10,000 EVs for the fifth month in a row; and for the third month in a row, Brazil achieved an EV market share of over 5% (5.4% in December, 6% in January, 5.6% in February, making it the fourth most advanced Latin American country in the path towards electrification!

As Brazil market exploded in late 2023 and early 2024, and we had outrageous headlines talking about 1,100% growth year on year (YoY), it was clear at some point growth would have to moderate somewhat. That time seems to have come now, but even so, 45% growth from a relatively high base seems like very good news, and more so as Brazil has been able to consistently maintain over 5% market share in the last few months. In an overall market just shy of 200,000 units (not including motorcycles), EV sales seem to have stabilized in the short term around 10,000 units a month.

My seasonal adjustment and smoothing
Note log scale

Brazil’s market remains heavily skewed towards PHEVs, something I’ve [i.e, Juan Mojica, not NPT] already commented on. Brazil, having bet big on flexi-fuel engines (capable of running on ethanol or ethanol-gasoline mixtures), and by far the largest country in the region as far as landmass, is naturally going to be more interested in PHEVs than the rest of Latin America.

Market share has been steadily increasing, even if the times of meteoric growth seem to be over (April 23 to January 24). My [JM's] bet, however, is on high growth returning in the near future as BYD, Chery, and GWM start churning out their BEVs and PHEVs in the coming months.

Brazil also has a category for “flexi-fuel HEVs,” which even if not EVs by any metric, could still make a significant difference as far as oil consumption goes. However, the best-case scenario for ethanol is to be paired with PHEVs and long-range EREVs, as that would allow for electric-only use in the cities (powered by Brazil’s increasingly clean generation) and for ethanol use in hyper-efficient powertrains during longer trips.

My calculations.  Total car registrations from Anfavea

 [Read more here]   Note how BYD and Chinese brands in general dominate the EV/PHEV market, which would be typical of poorer countries, where Teslas are too expensive.  Moral of the story:  EV prices are no longer an issue, at least where Chinese brands dominate.

BYD leads unstoppable charge

BYD's plug-in hybrid, The Shark

 

From The Driven 

In 2024, China registered 31.436 million new automobiles, a rise of 4.5 per cent over the previous year, with the growth of NEVs (new energy vehicles) jumping an astonishing 35.5 per cent.

In the passenger vehicle market, China achieved an annual penetration rate of NEVs of 47.6% throughout 2024, with the percentage of new sales exceeding 50% for five consecutive months in the second half of the year.

That trend has continued into 2025, with China’s February NEV sales reaching 892,000, up 87 per cent from February 2024. BEV and PHEV sales were up 85% and 90% year on year respectively, far outpacing the overall demand growth (including ICE vehicles) of 34 per cent.

As the country’s biggest car maker BYD says, the facts demonstrate the unstoppable trend of electrification and accelerated replacement of ICE vehicles with NEVs.

As the world’s largest NEV producer, BYD is leading the charge both domestically and internationally on transforming the possibilities of electrified mobility and household electrification. Its rival, Tesla, has effectively left the race when it comes to sales growth.

The BYD profit report released overnight reveals that BYD generated RMB 777.1 billion ($US107 billion) in revenues in 2024, up 29.02% yoy, driven by a 40% yoy growth in NEV sales.

This translated to a 34% yoy growth of net profit to RMB 40.3bn ($US5.55bn) over the year for BYD, even as it invested RMB 54.2bn ($US7.48 billion) into R&D in 2024, taking its total investment into R&D to RMB 180bn ($US24.83 billion), most of it into its world-leading technology in batteries, electronics and EVs.

The company has 20,000 R&D engineers, and submits an average of 45 patent applications and 20 patent licenses every day. One of the latest is the ‘Super e-Platform’, enabling 1,000 kW charging power. Stepping into the era of “charging as fast as refuelling” with the ability to charge 400km in just 5 minutes.

The impact of that R&D is there to see. Battery prices have fallen 82% in the last 10 years alone. In the same time, battery densities have risen 5-fold.

In 2024, lithium-ion battery prices fell a further 20% to a record low of US$115/kWh as manufacturing overcapacity continues to surge.

In 2024, 3,100 GWh of fully commissioned battery-cell manufacturing capacity was online, more than 2.5x that of annual demand. This has driven massive demand growth for EVs and stationary energy storage (BESS) systems globally, with China continuing to dominate.

BYD is already showing incredible growth in 2025, with sales up 93% in the first two months of the year to 623,300 vehicles.

While Tesla’s profitability contracted over 2024, and its share price continues to dive as the US regresses on climate, clean energy and trade, BYD’s share price is up more than 51% in 2025 on the Hong Kong Exchange.

China was already the winner. Now it is clear, the runner-up has left the race. Incredible to see the EV revolution and China’s leadership in real time.

I've been saying for nearly a decade that the growth of EVs to market dominance was inevitable.  You just had to extend the lines plotted on log scale to see what was likely.

What I got wrong was that I assumed that Tesla would remain the market leader.  But Musk became obsessed with right-wing culture wars, and took his eye off the ball.  Anybody who has ever managed a business will know that that is fatal.   Market leadership has now switched to BYD, and more broadly, China.  The US had the lead; and together Musk and the Republicans have thrown it away.  Even assuming a changed administration in 2028, the US auto industry's lag behind China will have expanded to 5 years.   With the speed with which the market is shifting, that might as well be a lifetime.  Things are moving so fast in China that competitors will be unable to respond.

BYD is also driving down battery prices for grid storage.  And this will accelerate the replacement of coal and gas by solar with storage.   Learning curves with a vengeance, fuelled by billions of dollars of Chinese research.  Under these circumstances, no rational investor will put money into coal, oil or gas.  They're done.  Over.  Antediluvian.  As outdated as the Lockheed Constellation, or the Vickers Viscount, technological marvels of their time.   

So, whatever Trump or the Republicans or Big Oil think or do, electricity generation and road transport will go fully electric.  And as battery energy density rises, so will rail transport, shipping, and (eventually) air transport.  50% of global emissions will be eliminated.

[BYD's sales include plug-in hybrids.  These will surely be replaced with fully electric vehicles as cost falls and energy density increases.  At some point the cost of a second engine will outweigh the cost of bigger batteries, while at the same time, the rapid deployment of fast chargers will remove range anxiety.]

 

EV sales could reach 25% mkt share this year

 In December 2018, I wrote a piece called  Red letter day: EVs pass 3% of car sales.  In that piece, I pointed out that EV/PHEV sales made up just 0.4% of global car sales in 2014, but by early 2018, they had reached 3.1%.  I argued that if this growth rate continued, EV/PHEV sales would reach a 50% market share by 2025.    Well, they haven't.   

In January 2025, they had reached 19%, globally.    This is still 6 times as large as in 2018, but one can't deny, it's not 50%.   Was this a bad forecast?  From their behaviour, most of the legacy car-makers clearly assumed that the growth rate in EVs/PHEVs would be linear, not exponential.  In other words, that the market share would rise by, say, 1% a year (or less!), meaning that their forecasts for the EV/PHEV market share by end 2024 would be 9% or below, not the actual 19%.  So it was a better forecast than legacy auto. 

What went wrong with my forecast?   First, Covid.  Second, I didn't understand that in the EU, they set 5-year targets for EV penetration, rather than a year-by-year increase, and the car-makers wait as long as possible before they comply, so you get a step-up every five years, rather than a smooth upward trajectory.   In the US, high tariffs on EV imports, especially from China, shielding legacy car manufacturers from competition, also meant the EV prices were higher than they could have been.  So EV sales in the USA are growing more slowly than before. And then there's been the impact of the leading EV brand, Tesla.  Its sales have plunged, globally, and competitors are still filling that gap.  

The result has been that the annual growth rate in EV/PHEV sales has slowed from 50% a year to 30% (see the second chart below)  At this growth rate the global EV market share won't reach 50% until 2028.  China is already there, with its plug-in share rising from 35% a year ago to 50% now, because EVs have reached price parity with ICEVs in China.  And in Brazil and SE Asia, EV sales are skyrocketing, though the EV market share is still low.

So what's my new forecast? Outside the USA, the plunge in battery costs will I think cause EV sales growth to pick up.  Market share in Latin America and SE Asia will rise fast, and they will become much more important markets for EV/PHEVs than they have been so far.  Chinese car-makers will sell to them as well as setting up assembly plants in them.  And at some point, the US will see how stupid it's been about EVs, and will reverse course, so EV sales there will start to grow fast again.   I'm confident EVs/PHEVs will reach 50% market share by 2028, and 90% by 2030.  We'll see, if I'm still around.

EV sales in China skyrocket

 From The Electric Viking

• China's EV+PHEV sales up 82% year-on-year in February; up 50% YoY so far this year.
• Volkswagen group's EV sales fell >50%.
• BYD dominates in China, and its exports were up nearly 180% YoY.  It's opening another factory in Europe.
• None of the 15 top-selling EV manufacturers is a legacy car maker.
• 31 million cars sold in China; global car market 80 million.  So China is 38% of the world total.
• EVs/PHEVs will reach 100% of car sales next year.   At a 50% growth rate, EVs/PHEVs will reach 70% of total car sales in China this year, and (as near as dammit)  100% next year.

The S-curve in action.  This is it.

My take on this is that any auto manufacturing country in the world which does not race to make its own EVs will lose this industry.  Biden saw this in the US; Trump does not.  And his tariffs on Mexico and Canada will only make things worse.  

I read somewhere that Europe is going to subsidies EVs produced in Europe, which might -- might -- save its car industry.  The US can protect its own car industry, but the rest of the world will transition to dirt-cheap EVs, saving themselves money, and crashing oil sales.  

 

China's EV/PHEV sales just keep on booming

Currently, EV/PHEVs make up more than 50% of China's car sales.  Note that the growth rate has slowed (the line is rising more slowly), but it's still running at 45% YoY (lower chart).  At this growth rate, the 50% market share will rise to 72% next year, and 100% the year after.  It's not going to happen, I hear you cry.  Well, maybe not, because as we get closer to 100%, the growth rate will inevitably slow.  But I wouldn't discount it altogether.  China wants to be independent of oil imports from unreliable oil producers, shipped across shipping lanes which geopolitics (Trump) could close.  Remember, it will take 15 years for the whole car fleet to be electric, even when EVs hit 100% market share.  And plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) will also have to stop being produced and sold.  Could be a couple of years more.

Battery cell costs to halve again

 Hat tip to Anish Kumar Sinha

Battery pack costs are higher than cell costs, but even so, LFP (Lithium-Iron-Phosphate) battery pack costs could drop from the current $94/kWh to  $60/kWh or below.  And that's before sodium-ion batteries go into mass production.

It's really simple: the market share of EVs is heading inexorably to 100%.  

Even in countries with high import tariffs on imported EVs (US/Europe), the cost of Chinese EVs will fall so fast that domestic EV prices will have to respond, leading to rising EV sales.  Not to mention Chinese EV companies opening new EV plants in S.E. Asia, Latin America and Africa.  

With electricity generation, ultra-cheap batteries will allow 24/7 solar power in sun-belt regions of the globe (35 degrees S to 35 degrees N), and mixed solar/wind in higher latitudes.  Beyond latitude 60 degrees, some form of long-term storage will be needed, prob'ly green hydrogen/green methane/green methanol.  But all this can be done using renewables, not fossil fuels. 

This revolution cannot be stopped by big oil.  Demand for coal and oil will fall progressively.  And global emissions will fall too.