Global EV sales soar, BYD largest manufacturer

Global sales of electric cars and plug-in hybrids in the first six months of this year were 63 percent higher than last year. That reports research agency Canalys, which states that 4.2 million plug-in cars worldwide left the showroom this year up to and including June. More than half of that was sold in China. Those 2.4 million Chinese plug-in cars accounted for more than a quarter of all sales in the Asian country, the most important market for car sales. Compared to last year, EV sales in China have grown by 118 percent.

In Europe, with 1.1 million units sold, one in five new cars sold in the first half was fully electric or a plug-in hybrid. In terms of sales, this is a growth of 9 percent. In itself a solid growth, but nothing compared to that in China. Canalys has already gone so far as to say that ‘the momentum is gone’ in Europe. Europe is the second largest market for plug-in cars after China, with a share of 27 percent. The United States is still a bit behind, because with 413,000 EVs, only 6 percent of the cars sold there were plug-in cars. The US ranks third among the largest EV markets, with 10 percent of global sales.

BYD and Tesla

The Chinese BYD sold the most plug-in cars in the first half and had 15 percent of the global market, just over the 14 percent of Tesla. It should be noted that this concerns both BEVs and PHEVs. Tesla was the global market leader in fully electric cars. The Chinese SAIC and Volkswagen were jointly in third place in terms of sales of plug-in cars with 9 percent. Geely, parent company of Volvo and Polestar, among others, follows with a sales share of 6 percent.