Sometimes it can feel like all the coverage given to electric cars is way out of step with the amount of EVs people are really buying, leasing and driving. We know that eventually most cars will be EVs, but at this point the proportion is still tiny, right?
Not in Europe, it isn’t. More than one in five cars sold in Europe in August this year was an EV. Not electrified, but fully electric. The exact number of EVs sold was 165,156, which is twice as many as were sold during August 2022, and represents 21 percent of total vehicle sales, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA).
More: Study Suggests EVs Could Account For Up To 86% Of All New Vehicle Sales By 2030
Okay, so EVs still have a way to go before they’re the most popular kind of car, but they’re getting there fast. They already outnumber sales of plug-in hybrids (7.4 percent) and aren’t far behind the 23.9 percent share grabbed by non-pluggable hybrids. Demand for EVs also far outstripped the thirst for diesels, which Reuters reports stands at 12.5 percent, down from more than 50 percent just eight years ago.
And given that we’ve already noted that EV sales have doubled, they’ll also surely overtake sales of straight ICE models (currently 50 percent, and falling) long before Europe’s 2035 combustion ban gets close to forcing the shift. Almost 1 million EVs have been sold across Europe in between January and August of this year.
Those numbers show that the market for EVs is more mature in Europe than it is in North America. We don’t have America’s August sales split to help us make a direct comparison, but we do know that while EV sales in the region did jump by 63 percent in the first quarter of this year, they still only accounted for around 7.2 percent of overall vehicle sales between January and July.
