If one more person tells you there’s a slump in electric vehicle sales ask them: “Where?”.
See, in some countries the sales records for EVs are breaking, but others they’re not. Here are the facts to fight the fiction.
Yes, there’s been a lot of talk recently about a slump in electric vehicle sales, and it would be easy to get the idea the EVs aren’t going to take off quite as fast as some predicted. But the data says something quite different with last month going down as a record breaker again for electric cars sold globally.
According to data analysts Rho Motion in September 1.7 million electric cars were sold worldwide, which is a 14 per cent increase month-on-month and 150,000 more than the previous record in December 2023.
China is driving the bulk of the sales with 1.1 million electric cars sold in September. Just to put that in perspective this is equivalent to the total sales of all new vehicles for the entire Australian market in a year.
Sure China has way more people and therefore more buyers but that 1.1 million represents 50 per cent of all new vehicle sales for the month, well the total was 2.27 million but it’s very close to half and that’s remarkable.
Making up the rest of the 1.7 million global EV sales for the month is Europe and the United Kingdom with 300,000 EVs sold in September, with the United States, Canada, Australia and the rest of the world making up the remaining 300,000.
It’s not just a monthly increase. This year 11.5 million electric vehicles have been sold globally so far, which is a 22 per cent increase on the same period last year.
BYD Seal Premium (image: Tom White)
Again China is far and away the biggest consumer with year-to-date sales up by 35 per cent. Still the US and Canada experienced a 10 per cent increase and the rest of the world was up by 25 per cent.
Australia is part of that (slightly condescending) rest-of-world figure, but we can tell you looking at local data that year-to-date 69,962 fully electric vehicles have been sold, compared to 65,743 this time last year. That’s a 6.5 per cent increase.
There is actually a slump going on, but it’s mainly isolated to Europe and the UK with EV year-to-date sales down by four per cent.
A reason for this is Europe began the transition to electric vehicles with gusto years before the rest of the world and the growth is slowing down as the market becomes saturated.
Norway, for example, appears to be close to that point. In August 94.3 per cent of new car registrations in Norway were for fully electric cars.
The country embraced electric cars a decade ago and in a statement released last month the Norwegian Road Federation said of the 2.8 million private cars registered in Norway 754,303 are all-electric compared to 753,905 combustion cars. This is the first time anywhere in the world that the number of electric cars in a country outnumber the combustion powered ones.
And China will likely hit that milestone very soon, too.
Australia is in an interesting position. Our vast distances aren’t a natural match for the relatively low ranges of current electric cars. But 73 per cent of the population live in major cities according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Daily commuting distances are also quite low, about 12,000km on average per year, which is about 33km a day.
The availability of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles in Australia seems to be lagging behind the uptake from our own experience testing EVs.
Australian consumer interest in affordable Chinese electric vehicles is high and the sales are reflecting this. BYD’s year-to-date result has increased by 74.4 per cent. Consumer loyalty to brands is changing particularly during the cost-of-living crisis where cheaper prices for a Chinese electric car could be part of the motivation to try a new brand. The 5308 BYD Seal hae been sold so far in 2024 – it’s first year on sale in Australia.
Australia signed a Free Trade Agreement with China in 2015 and the Federal Government is not imposing new tariffs on Chinese EVs, unlike the United States and European Union.
For consumers this will likely mean more Chinese brands arriving in Australia with vehicles that can undercut mainstream and established brands on price. What this means for those manufacturers who have been the first pick for many Australian car buyers in the past, remains to be seen.
So, yes there is a slump in EV sales but then again, no there isn’t. You have to ask where and why, because overall and even in the places where there’s a slowed growth there are more electric cars than ever before.
