Global Plug-In Electric Car Sales December 2020: Over 570,000 Sold

More than 3 million plug-in electric cars were sold in 2020.

Tesla Model 3

Mark Kane

By: Mark Kane

Feb 2, 2021 at 8:09am ET

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With all the numbers for December now in, we can finally take a look at the global sales of passenger plug-in electric cars in 2020. And there is a lot of great news.

First of all, according to EV Sales Blog, December was an exceptionally strong month with an all-time record volume of almost 571,500 units (up 105% year-over-year) and a market share of 6.9%!

It was also the third consecutive month with a growth rate of more than 100% year-over-year, and the third record month in the past four months (September-December 2020).

See more of our sales reports for December 2020.

Most of the plug-in car sales fall on all-electric cars:

BEVs: roughly 407,000 (up 81% year-over-year) and 4.9% market share
PHEVs: roughly 164,500 (up 205% year-over-year) and 2.0% market share

Global Plug-In Electric Car Sales – December 2020

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Year 2020

According to EV Sales Blog, almost 3,125,000 plug-in electric cars were sold in 2020 (up 41% year-over-year), which is 4% of the market (2.8% BEVs and 1.2% PHEVs). Not bad compared to the 2.5% market share in 2019.

It's also the first result above 3 million. In 2019 it was over 2.2 million, while in 2018 it was over 2 million.

EV-volumes reports 3.24 million plug-ins sales (probably including light commercial vehicles) in 2020 at 4.2% market share:

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The biggest single market in 2020 was Europe (over 1.36 million sales), slightly ahead of China (over 1.27 million sales).

Model rank

Tesla Model 3 was the top-selling plug-in model in December at an unbelievable 65,109 units! Model 3 was also the top model in 2020 (365,240 units), just like in 2019 and 2018.

The second best for the month and for the year was the tiny Wuling Hong Guang MINI EV, which entered the market in the middle of the year! The third on the list is the Renault ZOE with a little over 100,000 units!

Tesla Model Y noted almost 80,000 sales this year, which should at least double in 2021 we guess. Then we see the strong Hyundai Kona Electric. The Volkswagen ID.3 entered the market late due to software issues, but it quickly becomes one of the top models, including the third-best result in December.

The top-selling models in 2020:

Tesla Model 3 - 65,109 and 365,240 YTD
Wuling's Hong Guang MINI EV - 33,489 and 119,255 YTD
Renault ZOE - 16,372 and 100,431 YTD
Tesla Model Y - 16,055 and 79,734 YTD
Hyundai Kona Electric - 12,381 and 65,075 YTD
Volkswagen ID.3 - 28,108 and 56,937 YTD

Stats by EV Sales Blog:

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Brand rank

Tesla was in a class of its own in December (over 91,000) and in 2020 (almost 500,000), but as we can see in the table, Volkswagen is raising quickly. With more than 54,000 units in December and over 220,000 in 2020, the German manufacturer has the foundation to separate itself from the pack in 2021. However, we believe that Tesla will still remain the lone #1 for at least one more year.

What do you think?

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The great news is that now we can see a total of 10 brands in the six-digit range per year:

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