Originally published August 20, 2012. Updated August 25, 2026.
Electric vehicle adoption hit a record worldwide in 2025, with drivers buying more than 20 million electric cars globally, a 20% jump from 2024. In the US, adoption reversed. EV sales fell to 5.8% of new-vehicle sales in the fourth quarter of 2025, down from a record 10.6% share the quarter before, once the federal $7,500 tax credit for new EVs expired on Sept. 30, 2025. The rest of the world kept buying, led by China and Europe. The US pulled back the moment the discount disappeared.
Global EV sales hit a record in 2025
Worldwide, EVs took roughly a quarter of every new car sold in 2025, up from 17 million electric cars sold globally in 2024, which was already a bit over one in five new cars that year. The International Energy Agency projects 23 million EV sales and a 28% global share for 2026, roughly 3 million more than the world bought in 2025. Two markets are doing most of that work, and one country is moving the opposite way. The regional breakdown for 2025 looks like this:
| Market | EV share of new car sales, 2025 |
|---|---|
| China | ~55% |
| Europe | ~28% |
| Worldwide | ~25% |
| United States | under 10% |
Source: IEA, Global EV Outlook 2026.
China’s EV market is now more than half electric
In China, EV sales topped 11 million units in 2024, shy of half of every new car sold there that year. By 2025, that share had grown to about 55% of new car sales. That’s more than double the roughly 25% global EV share the same year. Among the four markets this piece has data for, China is the only one that has crossed the halfway mark. The climb from shy of half in 2024 to a clear majority in 2025 shows up in two back-to-back IEA reports. If you’re buying a new car in China today, the odds favor a plug over a tailpipe.
Europe’s EV sales are growing at a slower pace
Europe’s EV sales grew too, at a steadier pace than China’s. In 2025, EVs made up about 28% of new car sales across Europe, up nearly 30% from the year before. That puts Europe a few points ahead of the worldwide average share of about 25% the same year, trailing only China among the four markets in the table above. That’s up from roughly 21% in 2024, the year before this climb to 28%. Europe’s EV market didn’t stall out the way the US market did. It kept climbing through 2025, even as American buyers pulled back once their own federal incentive disappeared. This figure covers Europe as a whole, not any single country, so it doesn’t show how individual markets like Germany or Norway compare with each other.
US EV sales spiked, then dropped fast
For the full year, EVs made up shy of 10% of new US vehicle sales in 2025, a figure that blends two sharply different halves of the year. Buyers rushed to beat the tax credit deadline, pushing US EV sales to 437,487 units in the third quarter of 2025, up 29.6% from a year earlier, a record 10.6% market share. Once the credit expired, sales fell fast. By the fourth quarter, EV share had dropped to 5.8%, down 36% from a year earlier and 46% from the quarter before. It hasn’t recovered since. US EV sales came to 216,399 units in the first quarter of 2026, a 5.8% share and a 27% drop from a year earlier, roughly half the third quarter’s volume. The second quarter improved only a little, with 247,226 units sold, about a 5.8% share, down 20.5% from a year earlier but up 14.7% from the first quarter. Together, the first two quarters of 2026 added up to 463,625 EV sales. The IEA’s full-year figure sits under 10%. Cox Automotive’s quarterly numbers measure the same US market four separate times, which is why a full-year average and a single quarter’s share won’t match.
The federal EV tax credit that disappeared
The credit behind that third-quarter rush was worth up to $7,500 for a new electric vehicle and $4,000 for a used one, and it expired on Sept. 30, 2025. A separate $1,000 federal credit for home EV chargers ended the same day. Combined, a buyer who claimed both before that date could have taken up to $8,500 off the cost of a new EV and the charger to plug it into. The used-vehicle credit was worth about half as much as the new-vehicle credit. After Sept. 30, 2025, neither credit was available at any price. US EV sales dropped within one quarter of both credits disappearing. For a look at another alternative-fuel vehicle market, see our explainer on natural gas vehicles.
Public charging kept growing while demand fell
US public charging kept expanding even as EV sales fell. As of June 2026, the country had about 253,000 public charging ports combining Level 2 and DC fast chargers, per an industry tracker citing Department of Energy figures. That’s up from 168,388 ports across 64,641 station locations in 2023, the most recent year the Department of Energy’s own published count covers. That’s a rough 50% increase in public ports since then, and the 2023 count worked out to about 2.6 ports at the average charging station. Charging supply kept growing while EV sales fell, which puts the current bottleneck on the demand side of the market. The two numbers moved in opposite directions this year.
Where US fuel economy rules are headed next
US fuel economy rules could get weaker instead of stronger. In December 2025, NHTSA proposed rolling fuel economy targets back to 34.5 mpg by model year 2031, down from the Biden-era target of 50.4 mpg, about 32% less strict, a gap of nearly 16 mpg between the two targets. The proposal also excludes EVs from the math automakers use to show compliance and ends credit trading between manufacturers. Under the Biden-era rule, an automaker’s EV sales helped pull its fleet average up. Under the proposal, EVs wouldn’t count toward that number at all, and manufacturers couldn’t trade compliance credits to make up the difference. The CAFE debate isn’t new. In a Nov. 2012 fact-check, PolitiFact assessed Obama’s promise to cut US dependence on foreign oil, citing that era’s CAFE standards debate as evidence. For the oil-market side of that story, see our explainer on oil prices and OPEC.
The rule isn’t final. Comments closed Feb. 4, 2026, and NHTSA hasn’t set a date to finalize it. Whether the final version keeps the 34.5 mpg target, and keeps excluding EVs from the compliance math, will shape how much room automakers have to slow down on EVs next.
