European electric vehicle sales surpass China for first time since 2015
Sales of European passenger electric vehicles in the first half of 2020 exceeded those in China for the first time in five years.
According to a report from Bloomberg, around 380,000 electric vehicles were sold over the 16 main European markets in the first six months of the year.
Meanwhile, in China, which is widely considered the world’s largest market for such vehicles, sales dropped 44 per cent to around 330,000 models.
A combination of new subsidy schemes for purchasing electric vehicles, as well as the rollout of a number of new models, was responsible for the increase in European sales in spite of the coronavirus pandemic.
Large markets such as Germany and France have made subsidies for electric vehicles a central part of their wider coronavirus recovery packages.
The moves also support the EU’s so-called “Green New Deal”, which aims to make the bloc climate neutral by 2050.
Independent auto analyst Matthias Schmidt said that electric vehicle sales in western Europe would surpass 1m models in 2020.
In contrast, China reduced its subsidy programmes for the new technology in the middle of 2019, leading to a decline in sales.
Although it has subsequently reinstated the initiatives, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) still expects a 10 per cent drop in sales this year compared to 2019.
A report compiled by Schmidt covering the first seven months of the year showed that European sales had surpassed 500,000, 269,000 of which were battery electric vehicles.
According to CAAM data, 486,000 EVs were sold in China up to July, with 378,000 battery electric models among the figures.