Global Electric Vehicle Sales Historically See Decline in July

Financials, Automotive, Healthcare Author: Linyan Feng Sep 04, 2019 09:00 PM (GMT+8)

Mainly affected by Chinese electric market downturn, global EV sales fell about 14% in July.

Black electric vehicle is being charged. Image credit: Andrew Roberts

Global EV (electric vehicle) sales historically dropped by 14% in July, declining to 128 thousand, according to the report published by Sanford C. Bernstein, an American market research company, on Tuesday. EV sales declined in China and North America but rose in Europe.

As the largest EV market in the world, China reduced its subsidies to the market as of June 26 so as to stimulate industry innovation. Due to EV subsidy decline as well as economic downturn, consumer’s willingness to purchase EVs was restrained, further resulting in sales slump: EV sales fell about 22% on a year-on-year basis in July.

Affected by Chinese EV market that accounts for around 49% of global EV sales, global EV market first saw a decline in sales over past decades.

However, Bernstein illustrates that growth rate of global EV sales reaches 35% over the course of first seven months this year, and the rate for the whole year could range from 23% to 48%, selling 2.4 million to 2.9 million EVs.

An analyst wrote in the report that we still hold positive perspectives of the market’s long-term future, although we expect the market to remain in recession in the second half of the year.

Amid sales recession in July, Tesla ranked the first in terms of global sales with 23,284 Tesla EVs sold, whereas Chinese car maker BYD, invested by Berkshire Hathaway, ranked the second. Among the top 20 sales companies, no EV startup is on the list.