EV sales are soaring on the back of the Iran war and ever-falling battery prices. In a new report, the International Energy Agency forecast that nearly 30% of cars sold globally this year would be electric or plug-in hybrid.
That’s despite an 8% drop in global EV sales in the first quarter, largely due to policy changes in China, by far the biggest market, and the US. Beijing still accounted for nearly three-quarters of electric cars produced globally in 2025, and supplied much of the world with its EV exports doubling to a new record high. In the US, where the expiration of EV tax credits seemed to have hit the domestic market harder, first-quarter EV sales remained flat from the previous quarter, and dropped 23% from a year ago, Rhodium Group’s Clean Investment Monitor found.
Much of the rest of the world is still seeing significant growth: European sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids are expected to account for one in three cars sold in 2026; while sales across Asia-Pacific (excluding China) and Latin America are projected to rise by more than 50% and 45%, respectively.
