2025 will be the year of the "electric breakthrough" in China

2025 is upon us and we are already starting to make calculations about what will happen. The latest analyses by investment banks UBS and HSBC and research groups Morningstar and Wood Mackenzie claim that more electric cars will be sold next year than petrol or diesel cars for the first time.

The estimates are reported by the Financial Times, which speaks of more than 12 million battery and plug-in hybrid cars versus just under 11 million diesel or petrol cars.

Record speeds

If these numbers are confirmed, this would be a huge leap forward in a very short time. In 2022, 5.9 million electric vehicles were sold, so the estimated 12 million by 2025 would be more than double that.

The fact that China is running at a record pace was also confirmed by November's sales figures: 1,512,000 NEVs were delivered, of which 1,429,000 were reserved for the Chinese market (+53.8% compared to November 2023 and +9.7% compared to October 2024) and 83,000 for overseas.

In Europe, only Norway is doing well

Meanwhile, in Europe and the US, sales of electric cars continue to stumble. The only country where there are already more electric cars than petrol cars is Norway, where the government has supported demand with purchase incentives.

In November, the market share of electric cars in Europe fell from 16.3 per cent last year to 15 per cent, while volumes dropped by 9.5 per cent (ACEA data in EU, EFTA and UK). Registrations of plug-in hybrid cars fell by 8.8 per cent, petrol cars by 7.8 per cent and diesel cars by 15.3 per cent.

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