Electromobility worldwide: number of electric cars on the rise

Electromobility worldwide

Annalena Daniel, 15.02.2019, 10:58

Increase in the number of registered e-cars

The number of newly registered electric cars reached a new high of 2.2 million in 2018. According to the latest survey by the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW), most new registrations were made by Tesla, followed by the Chinese companies BYD and BAIC.

New registrations of electric cars worldwide 2018 in million © ZSW

The global stock of electric cars rose to 5.6 million at the beginning of 2019, an increase of 64% compared to the previous year. China doubled its e-car stock by registering 2,610,000 new e-cars in 2018. The USA follows in second place with a stock of 1,102,450 e-vehicles, 361,310 of which were newly registered. Norway is in third place with a stock of 298,210, but the proportion of e-cars on the road is 51%. In Germany, there are just under 142,000 electric cars on the road, putting Germany in 8th place worldwide in terms of the number of vehicles on the road and 4th place in terms of new registrations. However, growth momentum in Germany is comparatively low, with the total share of e-cars amounting to less than 2%.

According to the ZSW scientists, the highest number of new registrations worldwide - just under 233,760 - came from Tesla, followed by BYD with 215,800 and BAIC with 160,790 electric cars, although these two companies are almost exclusively active in China. The most successful German manufacturer in 2018 was BMW with 86,940 newly registered electric cars. This puts the company in 6th place worldwide. VW is in 9th place with 53,720 newly registered e-cars. The most successful model worldwide to date is the Nissan Leaf with 363,940 registrations, followed by the Tesla Model S with 243,200 registrations. The most successful German model worldwide in 2018 was the BMW i3, which was registered 108,560 times.

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