Plug-In Electric Car Sales Hit Record 173,000 In December

The year 2017 was, once again, a record-setter for plug-in electric cars. Sales entered growth mode and surged to all-time highs.

In December, we saw a new monthly record of around 173,000 sales (up 67% year-over-year) of plug-in electric cars globally.

For the full year, approximately 1,224,000 plug-in cars were sold (up 58% year-over-year)

Top Selling Plug-In Cars

The BAIC EC-Series didn't give any other car a fighting chance to be the first. With more than 13,000 sales in December alone, the Chinese city BEV ended the year with 78,000.

Four top global models were forced to fight for second place and the Tesla Model S beat Toyota Prius Prime, Nissan LEAF (first and second generation) and Tesla Model X.

Chevrolet Bolt EV (with Opel Ampera-e included) managed to stay within the top 10.

Top Plug-In Car Manufacturers

In the case of manufacturers (or rather, particular brands), BYD won the rank for the third time in a row thanks to over 109,000 plug-in cars sold in 2017.

BAIC and Tesla were nearly at the same result of 103,000 and BMW, without around 6,000 MINIs added in, was at 97,000.

See Also – BYD #1 In World For Plug-In Electric Car Sales In 2017, Beats Tesla Again

There is huge gap between the top four brands and the rest.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars

Just to have a comparison we would like to add the numbers for the hydrogen fuel cell cars, which noted only 3,382 deliveries for all of 2017 - growth of 46% is lower than in the case of plug-ins, too.

• Toyota Mirai - 2.689 (up 32%)
• Honda Clarity FCEV - 524 (slightly up)
• Hyundai ix35/Tucson FCEV - 169 (up 6%)