Outlook for 2021: breakthrough for EVs with 15% market share
With well over 1 million registrations in Europe, EVs reached a new sales record in 2020. For the first time since 2015, Europe is even ahead of China with the market share of BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicle) and PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle). Europe captured 43% of global EV sales in 2020, compared to 26% in 2019. That means 1 in 10 new passenger cars sold is now electric.
Transport & Environment, which analysed sales in 2020 as well as carmakers’ compliance strategies, said it shows the ambitious CO2 standards work. Due to stricter EU rules, the model range of a car brand may not emit more than 95 grams of CO2 per kilometre on average. Therefore, it’s important for manufacturers to commit to electric mobility. According to Julia Poliscanova, Denior Director for clean vehicles at Transport & Environment, stricter CO2 standards are the main reason for the growth in the number of electric cars.
“1 in 7 new passenger cars sold in Europe, or 15% of total sales, will be a BEV of PHEV by 2021”, Poliscanova said. “The electric car is finally entering the mainstream in Europe. But there’s a risk the EV momentum runs out of steam after 2021 due to a lack of EU targets for 2025 and 2030. ”
However, the European Commission already indicated that the target has been set to halve the average CO2 emissions of the sold car fleet in Europe by 2030 compared to 2021. A target of 37.5% was previously communicated.
Disrupting the EV market
To what extent the CO2 standards are tightened in the future, does not matter much to MG. When we relaunched the British car brand MG as an electric brand in 2019, we made a promise to European motorists. We promised we would make electric vehicles accessible to drivers who are young at heart and ready to embark on a new electric lifestyle. MG wants to disrupt the EV market, as the smarter and new choice, demonstrating its sole commitment to electric mobility.
With the MG ZS EV, the first model we launched in mainland Europe, we quickly reached the top 5 of best-selling EVs in several countries. In Norway for example, where the all-electric B-segment SUV cannot be ignored from the street scene as the number of registrations already passed 4,000.
Our second model, the MG EHS Plug-in Hybrid with CO2 emissions of just 43 g/km, was also received with great enthusiasm by the press and public. And there is more to come. MG has announced new promising electric vehicles from the second quarter of 2021.
Meanwhile, we now have more than a hundred MG brandstores up and running throughout Europe. And in the coming year, the number of brandstores will be expanded much further, also in new countries. Find out more in which countries MG is for sale already and where soon.
