According to a report from Matthias Schmidt, an independent car analyst in Berlin, Europe’s electrified vehicle sales have exceeded those of China during the first seven months of this year.
The tally stood at about 14,000 extra units for Europe as of last month, with roughly 500,000 plug-in hybrid and battery electric models registered on the Old Continent, as reported by Autonews Europe.
To be precise, a total of 269,000 fully electric models were registered in Western Europe, to go with 231,000 plug-in hybrids, claims the report.
Watch: 2021 VW ID.3 First Drive Finds It Has A Lot Going For It, But Also Has Its Faults
One reason for this type of market shift could be Western Europe’s government incentives, which not only helped carmakers recover from the coronavirus crisis, but also assisted their efforts in meeting new emissions standards. China meanwhile has been reducing its subsidies in order to encourage its carmakers to compete on their own.
At this rate, Europe will probably exceed 1 million sales of PHEV and EV models this year, said Schmidt, as Tesla begins selling more cars in the region and VW starts ramping up ID.3 deliveries. The latter is expected to become one of Europe’s best-selling electric vehicles, while Tesla has lost a bit of ground in Europe due to supply bottlenecks – the Berlin factory should solve those issues though, sometime next year.
Speaking of VW and Tesla, the two will be competing in Europe for EV supremacy and that battle has already seen some action in the 2021 VW ID.3 1st Edition undercutting the Tesla Model 3 by £1,610 ($2,045) in the UK.
