While the growth in sales is encouraging, Australia lags behind the world in the uptake of electric vehicles which accounted for 4.2 per cent of all passenger car sales globally in 2020, an increase of almost 100 per cent on 2019.
Leading the way are Norway, Iceland and Sweden where electric vehicles accounted for 74.8 per cent, 45 per cent and 32.3 per cent respectively in 2020, according to a report by the World Economic Forum.
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In 2019, just eight countries reported an uptake of electric vehicles greater than 5 per cent market share. That number not only grew to 13 in 2020, but each of those 13 countries reported a market share of over 10 per cent. Leading the growth is Germany, which reported 394,943 plug-in electric vehicles sold, an increase of 263 per cent on 2019.
Despite Germany’s strong growth, China remains the clear world leader in terms of raw numbers, with sales of over 1.2 million electric passenger cars in 2020 – an increase of 15 per cent on 2019. The US market share grew by 4 per cent; Americans snapped up 328,000 electric cars in 2020. It remains the third-largest market globally in terms of outright numbers, trailing only China and Germany.
