A worldwide pandemic in 2020 slowed overall vehicles sales considerably, but helped sales of electric vehicles (EVs) grow to more than 3.2 million units.
Thanks to Tesla, which sold 500,000 vehicles, EVs and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) accounted to 4.2% of the global car market last year. That is a big jump from from the 2.5% market share in 2019, according to data from EV-volumes.com.
The strong numbers came in even after a slump in the early part of the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the period from March to June 2020, sales of EVs actually dropped to levels below those seen in 2019. As the year continued sales picked back up and by December were double compared to December 2019.
Surprisingly the market with the largest growth in EV sales was the UK. Nearly 1.4M EV and PHEV were registered in 2020, 137% more than in 2019. Those numbers are particularly impressive when compared to the overall car market in the UK which dropped by 20%.
The five countries with the highest number of EV sales were China (1.5M), Germany (0.4M), the US (0.3M), and France and the UK with 0.2M each.
Canada registered 47,000 EV and PHEV sales in 2020, a drop of 7% compared to 2019.
Roland Irle, sales and marketing analyst at EV-volumes.com, predicts the rush of new EVs coming to market in 2021 will help push EV sales to 4.6M by the end of the year.
h/t: The Guardian
