Annual sales
Global electric car market is growing more slowly – China is way ahead
In 2024, more electric cars were sold than ever before. But growth has slowed – and Germany is losing its place in the top three.
Last year, more than ten million purely battery-powered vehicles were sold in the key e-car markets worldwide. There were 10.4 million sales in the 21 markets that the management consultancy PwC examined, according to an analysis that was previously available to the German Press Agency. That is 14.3 percent more than a year ago.
Growth has probably slowed significantly. In 2023, PwC had calculated an increase of 28 percent. However, the figures from the previous year have now been corrected significantly downwards. The main reason for this is that PwC has corrected its survey method for China in order to prevent vehicles exported from there from being counted twice. The difference is in the hundreds of thousands.
Germany loses its place on the podium
The absolutely dominant market is China with almost two thirds of the volume – specifically 6.7 million pure electric cars (BEVs). In terms of growth, it is also well above average at a good 20 percent – based on the corrected previous year’s figures. The USA follows with 1.2 million and an increase of 7.4 percent. Third place – unlike in the past – does not go to Germany, but to the United Kingdom (UK) with 382,000 BEVs. That was a good 21 percent more than in the previous year. Germany, on the other hand, falls just short of fourth place because the local electric car market collapsed by a good 27 percent to 381,000 cars last year after the purchase bonus was abolished.
Electric cars also fell in other European markets such as France, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Sweden, but the declines there were on a lower basis than in Germany.
External factors play a big role
“It is currently clear that the global e-car market continues to depend heavily on external factors,” says Jörn Neuhausen from the “Strategy&” consultancy, which is part of PwC. The strong sales in China at the end of the year can also be explained by “a kind of scrappage bonus for the purchase of electric cars”.
Withheld new registrations
Overall, Germany’s weakness is “slowing down the dynamics of the entire EU market,” said PwC. However, there is a special effect here that at least partially explains the current misery: Because manufacturers will have to sell significantly more BEVs in 2025 in order to comply with the stricter CO2 rules, they have postponed BEV sales from last year to the current year. As a result, PwC expects a boost in electric registrations at the beginning of the new year.
Thomas Peckruhn, Vice President of the Central Association of the German Motor Vehicle Industry (ZDK), has also observed the postponement of registrations. “We will see a significant increase in the number of new registrations of electric cars and plug-in hybrids in January,” he says about the German market. “But this isn’t a turning point, it’s just a flash in the pan.”
Growth in plug-in hybrids was significantly stronger in 2024 than in pure electric cars. In the markets examined, sales rose by 56 percent to 6.2 million. For hybrids without plugs, growth was 18 percent to 8.9 million.
dpa
Source: Stern
