Briefing

Electric vehicles market monitor for light-duty vehicles: China, Europe, United States, and India, 2020 and 2021

This is ICCT’s first Major Markets Electric Vehicle Monitor. The Major Markets series will analyze the electric vehicle (EV) market development and fleet carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions trends of manufacturers of light-duty vehicles (LDVs) in China, Europe, the United States, and India. These four markets were home to approximately 73% of global LDV sales in 2021.

Results show that EVs were 17% of all new LDVs sold in Europe in 2021. This was the highest EV market share in the world and a 70% increase from Europe’s EV share in 2020. As illustrated in the figure below, China followed with a 13.5% EV market share in 2021, and both the United States and India significantly lagged China and Europe in terms of EV market share—4.8% and 0.4%, respectively—and absolute number of EVs sold.

Bubbles in the chart show the absolute number of vehicles sold for each region in 2020 and 2021, with the bubbles shaded according to the share of BEVs and PHEVs sold in each market. Position on x-axis is model availability and y-axis is EV market share.

Figure. Light-duty EV market share, number of EV models for sale, and technology mix in the four regions.

The table below has details of the shares of the LDV market that EVs captured in 2020 and 2021 by region, segment, and technology. As you can see, plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) in Europe capture nearly the same share of the LDV market as battery-electric vehicles (BEVs). In all regions and in both segments, though, BEVs are a larger share of the market than PHEVs.

Table contains percentages for both the passenger car segment and light commercial vehicle segment, in addition to combined LDV shares, for each region in both 2020 and 2021

Table. Market shares of light-duty electric vehicles by region, segment, and technology