Global car parc electrification rate jumps to 34%

During the first two months of 2025, 126.0 GWh of battery capacity was deployed onto roads globally in all newly sold passenger EVs combined, 34% more than the same period last year. 

Given that China represents over half of the global EV market, and to smooth out the impact of the lunar new year holiday which fell early in 2025, Adamas aggregated deployment data for January and February to make meaningful comparisons year on year.     

Even with a full 59% of the global market for January and February, Asia Pacific still added fresh capacity at a noticeably faster rate (+38% year on year) than the Americas (+27%), which constitutes less than 18% of the global market in GWh terms. After a choppy 2024 when the market went into decline more than once, strong growth returned to Europe with the market expanding by 28% year to date.

In absolute terms, in January-February 2025, EV buyers in the Asia Pacific region rolled 74.4 GWh of fresh battery capacity onto the region’s roads while European drivers (including those in the UK, Russia and non-EU states) added 26.7 GWh and those in the Americas 22.1 GWh.  

The strong start to the year in Europe in GWh terms was due in part to a change in the sales mix towards full electric vehicles with BEV sales surging by 29% year on year in January-February compared to a 2% fall in new plug-in hybrid registrations.  

The EU’s automakers are keen to push BEVs out of showrooms in an effort to comply with mandated fleet emissions caps that came into force this year. The numbers were further boosted by the introduction of popular, more affordable BEVs like the Renault 5 which helped the French automaker nearly double sales at the beginning of the year. 

In Asia Pacific and the Americas, BEVs have also outpaced PHEV sales so far in 2025, reversing a trend in place for the last few years on the global market. BEVs represented 39% of sales in the Americas, and 46% in both Asia Pacific and Europe.  

EV buyers in the Americas opt for traditional hybrids nearly half the time but HEVs play a much smaller role in Asia Pacific with fewer than one in four EVs sold in the region minimally electrified. 

Contact the Adamas team to learn more or check out the intelligence services below.