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Electric car use by country

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Top-selling highway-legal light-duty plug-in electric vehicle country or regional markets by cumulative sales or registrations through December 2021. Only countries with cumulative sales over 300,000
Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) · CC BY-SA 4.0

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Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are generally divided into all-electric or battery electric vehicles (BEVs), which run only on batteries, and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), which combine battery power with internal combustion engines. The popularity of electric vehicles has been expanding rapidly due to government subsidies, improving charging infrastructure, their increasing range, lower battery costs, and environmental sensitivity.However, by 2025, electric cars represented about 5% of the global car stock. Electric car sales exceeded 20 million in 2025, up 20% from 2024, and accounted for 25% of global car sales."Trends in electric cars – Global EV Outlook 2026". International Energy Agency. 20 May 2026. Retrieved 25 June 2026.

Global cumulative sales of highway-legal light-duty plug-in electric vehicles reached 1 million units in September 2015, 5 million in December 2018, and passed the 10 million milestone in 2020. By mid-2022, there were over 20 million light-duty plug-in vehicles on the world's roads. Sales of plug-in passenger cars achieved a 9% global market share of new car sales in 2021, up from 4.6% in 2020, and 2.5% in 2019. The PEV market has been shifting towards fully electric battery vehicles. The global ratio between BEVs and PHEVs went from 56:44 in 2012, to 60:40 in 2015, and rose to 74:26 in 2019. The ratio was 71:29 in 2021.

As of December 2023, China had the largest stock of highway legal plug-in passenger cars with 20.4 million units, almost half of the global fleet in use. China also dominates the plug-in light commercial vehicle and electric bus deployment, with its stock reaching over 500,000 buses in 2019, 98% of the global stock, and 247,500 electric light commercial vehicles, 65% of the global fleet.

Europe had about 11.8 million plug-in passenger cars at the end of 2023, accounting for around 30% of the global stock. Europe also has the world's second-largest stock of electric light commercial vehicles, with about 290,000 vans. As of June 2025, cumulative sales in the United States totaled 7.04 million plug-in cars since 2010, with California listed as the largest U.S. plug-in regional market with 1.77 million plug-in cars sold by 2023.

As of December 2021, Germany is the leading European country with 1.38 million plug-in cars registered since 2010. Norway has the highest market penetration per capita in the world, and also has the world's largest plug-in segment market share of new car sales, 86.2% in 2021. Over 10% of all passenger cars on Norwegian roads were plug-ins in October 2018, and rose to 22% in 2021. The Netherlands had the highest density of EV charging stations in the world by 2019.

History

The global stock of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) between 2005 and 2009 consisted exclusively of all-electric cars (BEV), totaling about 1,700 units in 2005, and almost 6,000 in 2009. The plug-in stock rose to about 12,500 units in 2010, of which 350 were plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). By comparison, during the Golden Age of the electric car at the beginning of the 20th century, the EV stock peaked at approximately 30,000 vehicles. After the introduction of the Think City, Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt in late December 2010, the first mass-production plug-in electric cars by major manufacturers, plug-in sales grew to about 50,000 units in 2011, to 125,000 in 2012, and almost 213,000 cars and utility vans in 2013. Sales totaled over 315,000 units in 2014, up 48% from 2013. In March 2014, Norway became the first country where over 1 in every 100 passenger cars on the roads was a plug-in, and, by October 2018, 1 in every 10 passenger cars registered in Norway was a plug-in.

In five years, global sales of highway legal light-duty plug-in vehicles increased more than ten-fold, totaling more than 565,000 units in 2015—an 80% increase from 2014, driven mainly by China and Europe. About 775,000 plug-in electric cars and vans were sold in 2016, and 1.22 million in 2017—up 57% from 2016—with China accounting for about half of global sales. The global market share of the new light-duty plug-in segment reached 1.3% in 2017, up from 0.86% in 2016, and 0.38% in 2014. Global light-duty plug-in vehicle sales passed the 3 million milestone in November 2017 and 5 million at the end 2018. Global sales totaled 2,018,247 plug-in passenger cars in 2018, up 72% from 2017, with a market share of 2.1%. The BEV:PHEV ratio rose to 69:31 in 2018 and to 74:26 in 2019. By the end of 2019 the stock of light-duty plug-in vehicles totaled about 7.5 million units. Worldwide sales in 2019 rose to 2,209,831 units with a global market share of 2.5%. The combined number of PEV and hybrid cars sold in the European Union hit a record in July 2020, accounting for 18% of the total number of passenger cars sold. It also was the first time that more than 200,000 electric cars were sold in a single month.

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