Sales of plug-in hybrids, which can be charged at electric charging points, increased by 70% while fully electric vehicles increased by 63%.
Fully electric vehicles now amount to 9.1% of all vehicles sold, up from 1.9% in 2019 and 5.4% in 2020 due to subsidies by national governments and an increasing supply from manufacturers.
Sales of plug-in hybrids, these vehicles equipped with a combustion engine and a small electric motor, also increased by 70.7%, with 867,092 vehicles sold and an 8.9% market share.
The EC aims to ban sales of combustion engine cars by 2035, prompting Europe’s two main markets, France and Germany, to step up both infrastructure and manufacturing of electric vehicles.
But Sweden, Ireland and Italy all saw their electric sales double in one year in 2021.
The United Kingdom saw electric vehicle sales increase by 76% over one year while in Norway, nineteen of the 20 best-selling new car models in Norway in January were electric, with an unprecedented market share of 83.7%.