IEA: Global Electric Car Sales Topped 20 Million in 2025 as China Supplied 60% of the World's EVs
The IEA's Global EV Outlook 2026 finds one in four new cars sold worldwide was electric in 2025, with China dominating production and exports even as US sales softened after the EV tax credit expired.
Overview
Global electric car sales grew 20 percent in 2025, crossing 20 million units for the first time and meaning one in every four new cars sold worldwide was electric, according to the International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook 2026, released May 20. The agency projects 23 million electric cars will be sold in 2026 — close to 30 percent of all new car sales — even though global EV sales fell 8 percent in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same period a year earlier, primarily because of policy changes in China and the United States.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol described the milestone starkly: “Electric car sales set new records in close to 100 countries last year. The growing popularity of EVs has marked a major shift for car markets and the energy system as a whole — and it is providing some relief now amid the largest oil supply shock in history,” according to IndustrialInfo.
China’s Commanding Position
China’s dominance over the global EV supply chain continued to widen in 2025. Chinese automakers supplied 60 percent of all electric vehicles sold worldwide, while 55 percent of new cars sold in China were electric — 13 million vehicles, according to Electrek. The country produced nearly three-quarters of the approximately 22 million electric cars manufactured globally in 2025, and Chinese EV exports doubled to more than 2.5 million vehicles, with Chinese-made vehicles now accounting for 55 percent of EVs sold outside the country’s own borders — up from under 5 percent five years earlier, per ChinaEVHome.
China also holds more than 80 percent of global battery cell production capacity, Electrek reported. In contrast, Europe and North America each accounted for roughly 15 percent of global EV sales in 2025.
The United States: Softening After the Tax Credit
In the United States, electric car sales remained at just under 10 percent of total car sales in 2025 — approximately 1.5 million units, according to IndustrialInfo. The expiration of the federal $7,500 EV tax credit hit the market hard in the final months of the year: the fourth quarter saw a 45 percent reduction in EV sales compared to prior-year levels. The IEA report also flagged US affordability barriers, noting that 60 to 80 percent of new EVs in the country are priced above $50,000, compared to roughly 40 percent of new gasoline vehicles.
The Q4 shock had already been documented in domestic data. As previously reported, US new EV sales fell 28 percent in Q1 2026 — the steepest quarterly contraction in the modern EV era — while the used EV market continued to grow.
A Q1 2026 Dip, Not a Trend
The IEA report offered context for the 8 percent global Q1 2026 decline: it reflected policy adjustments in the two largest markets, not a reversal in underlying demand. Outside China and the United States, EV markets posted strong gains. Europe saw EV sales rise nearly 30 percent year-on-year in Q1 2026, the Asia-Pacific region excluding China surged 80 percent, and Latin America grew 75 percent, per Anadolu Agency. About 40 countries recorded EV market shares above 10 percent of new car sales in 2025, and nearly 90 countries posted year-over-year EV sales growth.
Monthly data for 2026 also showed a recovery trend: Energy Intelligence reported that global EV sales rose 3 percent in March and 6 percent in April year-on-year, with Europe leading with gains of 37 percent in March and 27 percent in April.
Trucks and the Broader Fleet
Beyond passenger cars, global electric truck sales more than doubled in 2025, with nearly one in every ten trucks sold worldwide being electric, according to Electrek. China drove the vast majority of that growth.
In Southeast Asia, EV adoption more than doubled as well, reaching roughly 20 percent of new car sales in 2025 and projected by the IEA to reach 60 percent by 2035 — among the steepest trajectories of any emerging market region.
The global EV fleet stood at approximately 80 million vehicles at the close of 2025. Under current policies alone, the IEA projects that fleet will grow to 510 million by 2035, according to ChinaEVHome. The fleet already displaced approximately 1.7 million barrels of oil per day from global consumption in 2025, a figure Energy Intelligence projects will rise to 5 million barrels per day by 2030 and 9 million by 2035.
What We Don’t Know
The IEA’s 23 million unit forecast for 2026 assumes that energy crisis dynamics — including higher fuel prices stemming from geopolitical instability in the Middle East — will push more consumers toward electric vehicles. Whether that materializes depends on how governments respond with policy, a variable the report explicitly flags as a source of uncertainty. In the United States, there is no indication the EV tax credit will be reinstated in its prior form, leaving affordability as a continued drag on demand in the world’s second-largest auto market.