At many families request, here are the Top 10 Markets by volume:
Country | Sep.'14 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | All Time |
USA | 10.551 | 87.369 | 96.034 | 54.970 | 258.742 |
Japan | 3.897 | 24.340 | 30.264 | 26.109 | 98.811 |
China | 11.991 | 42.493 | 17.732 | 13.292 | 71.177 |
France | 2.328 | 10.919 | 14.971 | 11.822 | 42.400 |
Netherlands | 1.143 | 11.545 | 23.170 | 5.583 | 41.259 |
Norway | 1.528 | 15.403 | 8.669 | 4.338 | 31.790 |
Germany | 1.076 | 9.247 | 6.749 | 6.492 | 24.806 |
UK | 3.014 | 8.256 | 3.730 | 2.971 | 16.334 |
Canada | 522 | 3.817 | 3.045 | 1.969 | 9.404 |
Sweden | 397 | 3.714 | 1.922 | 1.212 | 7.107 |
This shows how many plug-in cars are sold in each market, not the impact they are making, because of the overall market dimension, putting this as an extreme example, despite China buying three times more EV's than Norway, the global auto market in Norway is some 100 times smaller than the Chinese, the impact those 15k registrations make in the Scandinavian country is way more important than the 43k sold in the Asian giant.
Now, with that out of the way, let's look at the numbers:
- The US market has been on it's own league since a long time (The last time Japan was #1, it was the year 2010), selling two times more than the runner-up and almost doubling sales in each passing year. Now in 2015 things might be different...(See China)
- Although still #2 in stock volume, thanks to all those #2 (2011 to 2013) won, Japan was passed by awaking giant called China, and with a small yearly growth rate, it looks that Japan will be #3 for a long time;
- China has been considered by many as the crucial market for EV's because of sheer volume, although selling in great numbers over the last years (A consistent #3), the truth is that the impact in the global chinese auto market was still symbolic. Not this year, sales have been piling up and records beaten almost on a monthly basis, with China rising to Second Place this summer (We were in 2010 the last time it did), and last month it has even beaten USA as the largest market for plug-ins! If this trend goes on, and nothing points to the contrary, the next year could be the first to crown China as the Largest EV Market On Earth;
- Behind these three, we have five european countries with balanced results, resulting in several changes in the Largest Euro EV Market across the years (France in 2012, Netherlands in 2013, Norway in 2014), and even on a monthly basis, with the UK winning for the first time this trophy last month, speaking of stock volume, it looked like the Dutch were going to steal the Euro #1 from France, but a recent sales inversion (Netherlands falling, France rising), made it stay (For now at least) in french territory;
- Finally the last two markets, Canada and Sweden, while the first has been experiencing a steady growth over time, in the second, sales boomed this year, looking like it has reached some kind of tipping point.