- A record 1.7 million electrified cars were sold globally in September as deliveries jumped 30.5%.
- China fueled the boom, its demand for BEVs and PHEVs climbing 47.9 percent, Reuters reports.
- North American deliveries are up 10 percent Jan-Sep, but only rose by 0.4 percent last month.
China’s unrelenting enthusiasm for electrified vehicles turned September into a record-smashing month for global sales, even as some markets wallow in the usual doom and gloom.
Worldwide deliveries of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) surged 30.5 percent, bringing the total to 1.7 million units. A staggering 1.1 million of them were snapped up by buyers in China, where sales jumped 47.9 percent, according to Rho Motion data reported by Reuters. September was the second consecutive month in which China’s electrified sales hit seven figures.
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Sales were less spectacular in other parts of the world, but they were at least heading in the right direction – or the wrong direction if you’re a diehard combustion lover. North American sales were up 4.3 percent to 0.15 million, and in Europe they increased 4.2 percent to 0.3 million, spurred on in large part thanks to a 24 percent uplift in the UK and smaller gains in Italy and Germany.
China’s two consecutive bumper months have helped push global electrified sales for the first nine months of the year to 11.5 million, up 22 percent on the same period in 2022. Breaking those numbers down into regions reveals that China sales exploded by 35 percent to 7.2 million in January to September and the US and Canada increased its electrified take-up by 10 percent to 1.3 million.
The ‘rest of the world’ (anywhere that isn’t North America, Europe or China) moved 25 percent more units, shifting 0.9 million BEVs and PHEVs. But Europe, the next biggest region by volume for electrified cars after China, dropped 4 percent to 2.2 million.
“This record-breaking month of EV sales brings new hope to the industry,” claimed Rho Motion’s data manager, Charles Lester. “While the electrification of transport seems inevitable, the recent slowdown of sales in many parts of the world has sewn seeds of doubt which can now start to be swept aside.”
