ICE sales down, EV and plug-in sales up, month-on-month and year-on-year. Looks like the demand is there after all.
Global EV Tracker: Insights from 40+ markets accounting for 85% of car sales.
Welcome to the eleventh monthly issue of New AutoMotive’s Global EV Tracker. As we head towards year end, this mail offers a summary of battery electric and plug in car sales up to the end of November 2024.
UP - Battery electric registrations are on course to end the year at 10.8 million, 700,000 (7%) up on last year, whilst plug-in hybrids are trending towards 4.8 million, 1.7 million (54%) up on 2023.
DOWN - Meanwhile ICE vehicle registrations, whilst out in front for now, are set to finish at 43.0 million - the lowest figure for 4 years and down 2.3 million (5%) on 2023, making them the only fuel type for which demand is lagging.
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The Headlines
In November 2024:
1.10 million battery-electric cars were registered, an increase of 67,000, or 6% on November 2023. This is also a 7% increase on October' 2024’s figures.
Adding the greatest proportion of registrations was China, with an increase of 56,000, or 8% on the same month last year, with the US second, with a rise of just under 16,000 or 22%, and the UK third, with more than 12,000 - a huge 54% lift.
Roughly equal numbers of markets saw rises and falls in registrations, but amongst the largest 10 markets, only 3 - France, Germany and Sweden - declined.
Meanwhile, helped by the recent surge in Chinese plug-in hybrid volumes, vehicles with a plug now account for 26.7% of cars - more than one in four.
In the year to date:
9.5m battery-electric cars were registered, an increase of 600,000 or almost 7% on the same period in 2023. The increases were primarily driven by China, which saw new battery electric sales rise 508,000, the US, which rose 86,000, and the UK with 48,000 additional registrations.
The combined market share of battery electric and plug in hybrid cars was 23.2% (up from 20.1% in January to November last year).
Don’t forget that for more information, you can check out the Global EV Tracker dashboard - which allows you to produce customised analysis of car sales, market share and manufacturers - at the button below. Our new country profile pages, offering an overview of country-by-country policies and sales, are available at the same link.
Plug-in growth continues…
Battery electric registrations are 7% ahead of the same point reached in 2023 and if sales continue at the same rate, will end the year on 10.8 million.
Meanwhile the smaller plug-in hybrid market is already 54% ahead of 2023 levels, and will exceed 4.8 million by the end of 2024 on present trends.
…Whilst ICE vehicles continue to fall, in a rising market
In contrast ICE vehicle registrations have fallen, despite the overall size of the car market increasing. Whilst out in front for now, weakening demand means that they are set to finish at around 43.0 million. That’s down 2.3 million (5%) on 2023 levels and their worst result since the pandemic - despite overall car sales having their best year since 2019.
ICE registrations have now dropped for 8 of the past 10 months when viewed on a month-on-month basis, with no visible prospect of a recovery from their stall - even from a Trump presidency (see the Americas analysis below).
Market Indicators
What are the biggest markets for EV sales?
The 10 biggest EV markets, both in October 2024 and in the 12 months to October 2024, are shown below.
China and the US are the two largest markets for EVs, as they are for other vehicles. The UK is almost certain to finish as fourth largest market over the whole year after building up a significant lead over France, where manufacturers are occupied with lobbying against the new vehicle emissions regulations that have been 5 years coming. Germany even slipped behind a surging UK in November, but will keep its third place over the whole year.
Benelux and Scandinavian countries make up the next 5 places in the top 10.
Where are we seeing the greatest growth?
The emerging markets of Chile and Brazil have continued their rapid growth.
Smaller eastern and southern European economies account for 4 of the fastest growing markets in November 2024, when measured against November 2023 levels. These are small markets, but each has shown sustained growth of between 30 and 80% in the past 12 months on the previous year.
Meanwhile the UK, despite regulatory wobbles, is the fastest growing of the major European economies - demonstrating the superiority of its regulatory approach (see Europe analysis below).
Which markets have been slowest?
Amongst the worst performing economies, India is demonstrating the very European problem that when you withdraw incentives, promise new measures and don’t deliver them, consumers stop buying. Thailand has better fundamentals (see Asia analysis below for more).
Romania earned its places in the bottom 5 teaching India how to destroy demand, but should see registrations pick up if the Commission holds its nerve and lets regulations take effect in January 2025. For Iceland, the scars of an EV-only road pricing system are still deep, although sales are recovering.
Where is EV market share highest?
The Nordic and Benelux nations hold 7 of the top 10 placings for market share in the past month, having reached well into early majority audiences with generous and (Iceland excepted) stable domestic incentive regimes.
2 Asian economies feature in the top 10 - China is by far the biggest market overall, whilst the city state of Singapore has more than doubled EV market share in a year and a half by disincentivising petrol vehicle registration.
Ireland’s result is a seasonal effect, but bodes well for December, which is the traditional peak in EV registrations. The UK was the best performing of the big 5 European economies last month, finishing 12th highest, with 25.0% market share.
Continent Analysis
Americas
US battery electric car registrations were up again this month. Five of the six months in which they have exceeded 110,000 have landed in the second half of 2024, whilst the share of vehicles with a battery driving the wheels edged upwards towards an all-time high of 21%. We still expect a significant rush towards new battery electric in the final month of 2024 as buyers race to beat the expected withdrawal of tax credits by the incoming Trump presidency.
However even in a nightmare scenario where not only fuel efficiency standards and tax credits but also California’s clean vehicle mandate are unwound through presidential decree, acts of congress and hostile litigation respectively, we anticipate the decline of ICE cars to continue, and global EV sales to increase.
This transition is bigger than Donald Trump. Even had all of US EV sales this year instead been gas vehicles, we would still have been on course for a record-breaking 2024 for global battery electric registrations and a decline in ICE cars. Beautiful tariffs would simply take the US and its domestic makers down a legacy technology dead-end with no international buyers.
Turning to Central and South America, Chile’s battery electric bounce continues, with it's third best ever month of registrations and a market share of 2.7%, an all-time high.
Brazil’s battery electric registrations moved sideways in November, with their market share slipping slightly to 2.3%, falling behind Chile’s for the first time. Mexico’s recent boom also appears to be over, as market share slipped back slightly to 1.2%.
What all three countries need is a move to supplement incentives with policies which broaden demand by encouraging manufacturers to build low cost models that compete with inefficient and polluting legacy technologies and appeal to the whole car-buying public.
Asia
China’s market is strongly seasonal, with November and December being peak months. With that in mind, registrations of fuel types hit year-to-date highs, but plug-in cars have grown much faster than ICE, raising their market share by one-sixth, from 38% to 44%. Monthly registrations of vehicles with a plug have hit a new all-time high of 1.24 million sales. The previous all-time high was just last month.
Thailand’s market fell for a sixth consecutive month, but is showing signs of bottoming out. However the falling absolute registrations of battery electric offer a misleading picture, as its market share rose to 16% - the highest figure since January 2024. Petrol and diesel volumes scored fresh lows - these depths haven’t been plumbed since at least 2017. No wonder Japanese manufacturers are pulling out.
Singapore scored its best ever market share of battery electric in November, reaching 36%. Diesel has largely disappeared from view, with 15 registrations (0.04% market share) in the year to date, and BYD has outsold previous BEV market leader Tesla every month since September 2023.
India’s policy and incentive focus has understandably been two- and three-wheelers. However, the absence of policies to encourage manufacturers to produce electric cars or encourage consumers to buy them is bringing fresh pollution in unprecedented volumes, with 1.9m new petrol cars and 600,000 new diesel cars joining India’s roads in the year to date. Battery electric market share is unchanged on last month, equalling a two year low of 1.0%.
Japan’s combined market share of petrol and diesel fell to 33.1% last month, the third lowest figure of all time and the lowest since February. But almost all of the increase is attributable to hybrids without a plug. Battery electric cars account for 1.4% of registrations and plug-ins are barely better, at 2.2%. Japanese EV demand appears to be out of kilter with domestic manufacturer supply, with imported battery electric cars outselling homegrown cars by a factor of more than 2 to 1. But weak supplier regulations have little prospect of bringing them back into alignment soon.
Top manufacturers
BYD outsold Tesla by “only” 2-to-1 in November in China, whilst Wuling also beat the only American firm in the top 10 for a second month. The mini-EV specialist will finish behind the sole US firm in the top over the year, but if trade wars kick off and tariff vs tariff bite, who knows what 2025 will bring?
Premium EV specialist Zeekr has now overtaken VW Group, pushing the only top-flight European maker down to 10th. That position is vulnerable too. If XPeng, in 11th, outsell them next month at the same rate as they did in November, then - barring a slump by Nio in 9th - European manufacturers are out of the top 10 altogether. The next highest placed non-Chinese firm over the past 12 months is BMW, holding on in 14th.
Europe
A slowdown in EU EV sales was widely expected for November and December, as despite the best efforts of some manufacturers, a 15% reduction in the average emissions of new vehicles will come into force from January. Manufacturers have been comfortably beating existing standards (see table 2), so there is no incentive to sell EVs at the tail end of this year when the rewards for promoting them in a few days’ time are so much greater.
No doubt the new standards will be a stretch for manufacturers who have not invested in producing the EVs consumers want to buy, but firms will have 5 years to get used to them and lobby against a further 47% cut set to come into force 2030. The UK’s annual targets are delivering more affordable EV sales earlier in the decade than the lobby-step-stagnate and repeat cycle applicable in the EU.
Some markets are growing sharply thanks to country-level incentives - with BEV registrations in Belgium rising 18% on November 2023 levels, Denmark 21% and Hungary 22%. Meanwhile the Netherlands achieved a 42% increase, Czechia 57%, Ireland 58%, Cyprus 68% and Greece 150%.
Nevertheless 4 of the 5 largest economies - Germany, France, Italy and Spain - are still struggling to get moving. Germany’s plugin market share is flatlining at 22%, with a third consecutive month in which sales of vehicles with a plug exceed 20%, but only two-thirds of these are battery electric. France’s political crisis appears to have spooked car buyers, with total vehicle registrations falling 5% on a 12-month rolling basis since April. Despite falling by 7%, battery electric has fared better than petrol and diesel, with full hybrids being the only fuel type to increase volumes. Spain and Italy continue to bump along with November registrations offering 6% and 5% battery electric market share respectively.
Top manufacturers
Top manufacturers for the European markets for which we have data (including the car markets of Germany, the UK, Italy and the Netherlands, plus 4 smaller markets) is shown below. Following a good November, Tesla still leads, and will be top manufacturer for 2024, with its market share of 14.2% in the year to date holding steady compared with the same period last year.
BMW could pip Volkswagen to second place by year end, although as a lagging manufacturer against the UK’s Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate, VW have a stronger incentive to increase sales.
In 11th are Ford, who have turned around their EV offering in recent months, increasing their sales by a factor of 4 since November 2023, and outselling all but one of the Chinese manufacturers.
That firm is Volvo, the only Chinese manufacturer in the top 10. But their doubling of market share from 3.7% in the first 11 months of 2023 to 7.4% between January and November of this year is the only substantive loss of market share to Chinese makers over that period, showing how overstated the supposed domestic automotive crisis has been and how unnecessary any delay to the tightened emissions regulations is. Rather it is the lack of competitiveness on EVs in overseas markets and falling demand for ICE vehicles that is the root of European makers’ profitability slump, and any delay or dilution of regulations will only exacerbate that.
Whilst we’re on Chinese firms, November has seen the first full month of tariffs on imports of battery EVs from China, although they have been expected since July. The charts below compare the changing market share of the top Chinese manufacturers in the EU with the UK, which has not imposed tariffs.
In the UK, Chinese firms’ market share has always been higher - chiefly due to the popularity of the MG brand - and has shown no sign of increasing as competitors cut costs to meet the UK’s zero emissions vehicle mandate. In fact the trend appears to be in the other direction, with the big 4 manufacturers’ market share falling from 17.1% in November 2023 to 15.3% last month.
In contrast, in the EU, the Chinese share of the BEV market only began to significantly increase with the announcement of the EU’s competition investigation in October 2023, presumably as Chinese-owned firms brought forward imports to beat the tariffs, readily converting them to sales in the face of weak competition from EU firms who were already selling enough EVs to meet their 4-year old targets. The big 4 Chinese makers’ market share has now levelled off at 11.5% in November - compared with 10.5% in November 2023. It is difficult to conclude that the tariffs have had any beneficial effect at all - whilst also making it more expensive for EU consumers to buy EVs over ICE vehicles, for Chinese firms and EU firms who manufacture in China alike.
This again suggests that the UK’s approach of open markets and ambitious supply-side regulations is doing a better job than the EU’s trump-lite protectionism and weak requirements in helping manufacturers make the transition.