The global market for electric cars doubled in 2021, showing that the electric mobility revolution is gaining a lot of strength. The future is becoming the present, but although it usually happens in these cases, it does not arrive equally in all markets.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published a report where they detail how the adoption of electric mobility has seen a significant increase in 2021. The electric vehicle market jumped from 4.11% to 8.57% globally during the last year.
Some are calculated 16 million electric cars circulating around the worldbut not all regions have seen similar adoption. Europe and China lead the change, with market shares of 16% and 14%, respectively. But very important countries like the United States have barely achieved a share of 4.5%.
The impressive growth of electric cars in the last three years
The report of the International Energy Agency explains that the growth in the adoption and purchase of electric cars has been especially impressive in the last three years. Even as the pandemic has hit the economy and reduced the market for traditional vehicles.
In 2019, the sale of electric vehicles was 2.2 million globally. It represented 2.5% of the total market share. 2020 saw a significant reduction in sales of gasoline or diesel cars, but electric cars experienced a reverse effect, increasing to 3 million units sold.
2021 has catapulted interest and the sale of electric cars has reached 6.6 million units, equivalent to a market share of almost 9% globally. In fact, all the net growth in vehicle sales, in general, has come from electric vehicles. Of that number, almost 1 million units are from Tesla.
Killing the 1% myth
This report comes to demystify the common argument that electric cars represent just 1% of all vehicles sold or in circulation. It is often used as an asset against electric mobility and the supposed zero growth it has in real conditions.
The reality is that the upward trend in electric mobility is just beginning and 2022 will see even more impressive numbers. But above all, we will see how the market share of electric cars grows even more than last year.
The real problem, explains the report of the International Energy Agency, is another one. The growth in 2021 of electric mobility has helped to significantly reduce oil consumption and CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. But all these benefits were canceled by the parallel increase in the sale of gasoline or diesel SUVs.