A new record for electric automobile sales will be set for 2019 with 4.89 million already sold between January and October, as opposed to 4.06 million for the same period in 2018.
This year, around seven percent of vehicles sold around the world are electric in one way or another. As for all-electrics, their sales rose to 1.204 million units worldwide between January and October, as opposed to 937,000 units over the same period a year earlier.
The most buoyant market for electric vehicles is in China, where they account for eight percent of sales. For its part, Europe can lay claim to an average seven percent of sales going to electrics, while America lags behind a little with an electrics automobile market share of just four percent.
One major brake to more electric vehicles is their relatively high cost, and sales growth is certainly linked to trends in prices. In Europe and the United States electric vehicle prices respectively increased by 42% and 55% between 2011 and 2019, whereas during the same period in China they actually fell by 50%.
The Mercedes-Benz E 350 e plug in hybrid.
This is all the more paradoxical given that the only automaker which has electric vehicles accounting for 100% of sales is Tesla. Ranked just behind the US manufacturer, China's Beijing and JAC, India's Mahindra and Japan's Suzuki and Toyota also chalk up more than 20% of their sales with electric models.
As to the kind of electric vehicles that are selling, city cars account for the biggest share of the electrics market (35% in 2019 as opposed to 42% in 2018), but this may soon change given the growing popularity of electric SUVs (28% market share as opposed to 25% a year earlier).
