Electric vehicle adoption continues to progress across the world owing to the collaborative efforts of governments and automakers.
The shift to more sustainable mobility is primarily prompted by the surging carbon emissions in the atmosphere, causing climate change and global warming. Therefore, EVs are currently being recognized as tools to aid countries in their push to reach carbon neutrality in the future.
Without further ado, below are the top markets with the most electric cars worldwide as of 2024.
China
China continues to dominate the global electric vehicle industry owing to its strong and enormous supply chain.
Drive estimates that China reached roughly 20 million electric car registrations as of January 2024, indicating the highest figure of any market globally.
In hindsight, the country only had 13.1 million new energy vehicles (battery electric, hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles) in 2021 out of the 417 million overall vehicle registrations.
Of that total, all-electric vehicles accounted for 81.6% to 10.6 million units in the same year. Impressively, this remarkable BEV registration has rapidly grown since then.
In the following year, China registered more than 4.4 million NEVs and grew to 9.49 million units in 2023.
All that said, it is not impossible for China to actually reach a total of about 20 million EVs to date.
US
The United States secured the second spot in the top markets with the most electric cars globally.
Its electric vehicle registrations reached 2,442,300 units out of the 99,946,870 private and commercially owned automobile sales in 2022, official government sources’ data revealed.
In 2023, EV sales recorded another 1.1 million+ units. Therefore, the country’s estimated EV registrations as of January 2024 are 3.5 million units.
Europe
Despite not being a country, Europe only follows the US in terms of electric vehicle uptake. According to the report, the European market’s BEV registrations throughout 27 EU countries reached a total of 3,860,233 in 2023.
It must be noted that the data came from the European Commission.
Meanwhile, Norway undoubtedly lags behind China in electric vehicle volume. Nonetheless, it advanced as the top country with the most EV share, not just in Europe but worldwide.
Notably, battery electric vehicles currently account for more than 80% of the country’s new vehicle sales of 126,953 in 2023.
Optimistic forecast
Considering the rapid growth of the electric vehicle industry, several experts project that sales will continuously increase in the following years. It will apparently transpire with governments’ supportive policies and incentives and automakers’ efforts to cut prices.
According to American private research company the Rocky Mountain Institute, EVs will hit price parity with traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles in Europe in 2024 and the US in 2026. It further asserted that EVs will contribute two-thirds of new vehicle sales globally by the end of the decade.
Meanwhile, US investment bank Morgan Stanley forecasts that 50% of all new global car sales will be BEVs by 2050. Interestingly, it expects China to still dominate the EV industry by then.
