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Electric Vehicle Sales Jump by Over 50% in 2017, Thanks to China

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Electric Car charging parking spot

Photo: byronv2

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed car news over the past year that electric vehicles are on the rise, with more and more iterations hitting the market along with expanding charging infrastructure and attention paid to what was once a pitifully small niche market segment.

So, just how much have electric vehicles sales risen in the past year? Well, according to EVvolumes.com’s preliminary analysis, that answer is around 57% higher – this includes all global battery-electric and plug-in hybrid passenger car sales, “light trucks” (read: crossovers) in the US and Canada, and “light commercial vehicles” (vans and other small goods-carrying vehicles) in Europe. Of those sales, battery-electric vehicles were king thanks to the electric-friendly Chinese market, making up about 66% of the total, with plug-in hybrids taking up the other 34%.

Globally, the plug-in vehicle market share touched 2% for the first time for the month of December, and stood at 1.3% for the year as a whole.

Breaking up into the major regions, China, of course, was by far the top plug-in vehicle buyer, increasing its sales of “New Energy Vehicles” by 72% year-over-year for a total of about half of the global sales. As for the rest of the “Asia-Pacific Region,” Japan and South Korea also saw significant plug-in sales booms, particularly of the Prius Prime and 2018 LEAF in Japan.

In Europe, sales rose more modestly, though still strongly, by 38% over last year, predictably led by Germany (which is the largest auto market in Europe), though supported by strong growth in smaller markets.

In the US, sales was slower at a 27% increase (EVvolumes.com points to the slow roll-out of the Tesla Model 3 as one possible culprit), while Canada posted far better numbers at a 72% increase over 2016.

As even more electric vehicles are being created and released and more and more charging stations are being built, it seems likely that this rising trend will continue for 2018 – EVvolumes.com even predicts that by this time next year, it will be reporting a global plug-in vehicle share of 2% of the whole world market, and 3% for December 2018.

News Source: EVvolumes.com