EV sales worldwide grew by 25% in 2024

Despite all negative coverage in recent times, worldwide sales of electric vehicles grew by 25% in 2024. According to data from the British company Rho Motion, an electric vehicle research consultancy, 17.1 million battery-electric vehicles were sold last year.

There’s a noticeable difference between regions. The progress in China was evident (11 million electric vehicles, +40%), but North America also sold 9% more BEVs (1.8 million in total), while the ‘rest of the world’ grew by 27%. Only in Europe did the sales of electric cars decrease by 3%, resulting in total BEV sales of 3 million units.

So, it’s mainly from this region that all the alarming sounds of a collapsing EV market are coming. In Europe (UK and EFTA countries Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland included), the electric market has stagnated, and hybrid cars have taken a much larger part of the total market, also to the detriment of ICE cars (petrol and, specifically, diesel).

It’s the politics, stupid…

Paraphrasing Bill Clinton’s saying, governmental incentives and other measures still play a significant role here. In Germany, for example, the sudden disappearance of all incentives at the end of 2023 led to a collapse of BEV sales in 2024.

On the other hand, the objectives posed by the British government have pushed the UK to the position of leading large country in BEV sales, with an increase of 21.4%. So, as well incentives on BEV prices, which are still too expensive without them, as premiums to scrap old cars are still necessary.

“The carrot and the stick are still working,” says Charles Lester of Rho Motion. “For sure, the incentives for electric cars in the U.S., abandoned by the new president, will undoubtedly influence EV sales in the States.

In Europe, the EU CO2 emission tariffs will also play a role, and 2025 will be crucial in this aspect. “Many European governments don’t put EV incentives high on their priority list, and the price of new electric models is still too high,” notes William Roberts, another analyst at Rho Motion.

Finally, the import tariffs on Chinese electric cars will start to affect their sales in the first half of 2025. Still, they’re working hard to circumvent the eventual backlash of these measures by looking to produce locally or by joining forces with European manufacturers, like Leapmotor and Stellantis, for example.

Policy influencing

As this pattern of messages about declining or slowing EV sales started to show itself in the media, David Reichmuth of the Union of Concerned Scientists suggested that one motivation behind the false headlines could be influencing regulations.

The idea goes that, by pretending EV sales were “cooling”, although they were not, automakers could convince governments to pull back on their future commitments, thus allowing some to continue business as usual instead. 2025 will tell us where we will be heading, hoping that our politicians finally display a vision of where we want to go instead of going forward- and backward all the time.