China Leads The Way In Electrifying The Road

Over the last ten years, China has become the global battery electric vehicle (BEV) forerunner, increasing its annual sales of fully-electric cars from roughly 10,000 in 2012 to 4.4 million in 2022.

As Statista’s Florian Zandt shows in the chart below, based on data from the Global EV Data Explorer maintained by the International Energy Agency, three out of the five countries with the most BEVs sold last year have been part of the top 5 ever since e-mobility turned from a marketing buzzword to a tangible effort towards reducing CO2 production in transport.

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Apart from China, which jumped from third place in terms of BEV sales in 2012 to the uncontested number one spot in 2017, the United States and France have also been at the forefront of electrifying their passenger car fleets.

Since 2017, Germany has also become a serious contender in this area, registering around half a million new fully-electric cars in 2022.

When it comes to growth, China again can’t be beaten, increasing its annual sales by 44,000 percent from 2012 to 2022.

This drive towards electric mobility coincides with the People’s Republic’s efforts in the energy sector.

The country is expected to reach its goals in energy production via wind and solar five years earlier than planned and will produce 1,200 gigawatts through the aforementioned renewables by 2025 according to media reports. Renewable energy made up 45 percent of China’s total energy capacity in 2022, up from 26 percent in 2011.

With a buzzworthy topic like e-mobility, it helps to put the numbers in perspective though.

Last year, total sales of passenger cars in China amounted to 23.6 million, which means only about 19 percent of new cars were BEVs. However, the second biggest market for BEVs fares far worse.

In the U.S., 13.8 million light vehicles, which include the most popular segment for U.S. car buyers, light trucks, were sold, of which 800,000 or roughly six percent were BEVs.

Germany, the United Kingdom and France, on the other hand, are hot on the heels of the People’s Republic with BEVs market shares in new cars sold ranging from 13 to 18 percent.