The world is at the edge of a massive technological, cultural and lifestyle change. It is caused by a new technology that will replace the old way of doing many things in our daily lives. I am referring to electric vehicles.
The thing is that the change is practically inevitable, but because it affects so many activities that we are used to, it will take longer than experts expect. Nonetheless, the new era has already introduced new enterprises and brands to the car markets – another inevitable trend. When we look at the most sold electric cars from 2014 until 2018, the list already shows that the industry is changing.
The bestselling electric car in the world comes from Japan: it is the Nissan Leaf. Almost half of the world’s electric cars are rolling on the roads of China. More than million e-cars are burning rubber on the roads in the US, and about the same number in Europe.
German research and development institute ZSW (Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg) has put together the statistics for the sales of electric vehicles. The bestselling electric cars (no hybrids listed in this top 7) from 2014 until 2018 were:
- Nissan Leaf 363,940 units
- Tesla Model S 243,200
- BAIC EC-Series 172,850
- Chevrolet Volt 171,670
- Tesla Model 148,080
- Renault Zoe 114,310
- BMW i3 108,560
When the big German automakers, like Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes start delivering electric vehicles designed for the mass markets, these statistics will look different. For instance, VW has said it will start large-scale production of e-cars in 2022.
New registrations of ecars in 2018:
- Tesla Model 3 had 146,310 registrations
- BAIC EC-Series 90,640
- Nissan Leaf 81,140
- Tesla Model S 47,020
- Renault Zoe 32,780
- BMW i3 23,940
- Chevrolet Volt 22,810
New registrations of electric cars by year. Source: ZSW.
These are the countries with most electric cars (these numbers include PHEV cars, Plug-in Hybrid electric vehicles)
- China 2,610,000 electric cars
- USA 1,102,450
- Norway 298,210
- Japan 246,390
- France 204,520
- UK 185,850
- Netherlands 145,880
- Germany 141,690
- Canada 89,740
- Sweden 77,810
- South Korea 57,410
- Spain 42,230
- Switzerland 34,680
- Rest of World 374,000
- Total 5,610,860
In large countries like China and US, the numbers are high, but if we compare the sales numbers of electric cars to the sales of traditional cars, Norway has the most electric cars in the world. In 2018, half (51%) of new passenger cars sold in Norway were electric.
In China, about 5% of new car registrations were for electric vehicles, and about 2% in the U.S.A.