Electric vehicle (EV) market research company Rho Motion has published figures showing all regions of the world registered increased plug-in hybrid EV (PHEV) and battery EV (BEV) sales in January 2025, compared to the same month a year before.
Globally, Rho Motion counted 1.3 million EV sales in January. This is up 18 per cent on the month of January 2024, but not a patch on the record breaking November and December 2024 sales numbers.
European Union and European Free Trade Area sales rose 21 per cent or 250,000, and the United States and Canada increased their EV purchase numbers by 22 per cent, or 130,000.
China, which is a top EV market, also saw sales increase, by 12 per cent in January 2025 compared to the same month a year prior. However, compared to December, sales dropped by 43 per cent.
This is to be expected, Rho Motion said, as the two opening months of the year are typically the weakest due to the Chinese New Year. February EV and total vehicles sales are expected to be low as well. Instead, Chinese vehicle buyers go all-in towards the end of the year.
Rho Motion noted the change of president in the United States has not impacted the North American market. The company's data manager Charles Lester noted emission standards are coming into force for European manufacturers in 2025, with the region showing encouraging growth.
European manufacturers that don't comply with the new emission standards face tough fines.
Germany saw overall EV sales increase 40 per cent year on year, and BEV sales by 50 per cent. In France the market fell 52 per cent in January, due to pre-buying the month before, as the country introduced a weight tax on PHEVs starting this month.
23 Comments
It is a PHEV, the rather nice Toyota Prius that I test drove.
I thought you were a tech guy. "PHEV" stands for Pointlessly Heavy Everyday Vehicle, and when the car is accelerating and maintaining speed without the assistance of the petrol engine it is actually being powered by magic. This is all very easy to find on the Internet, you even read it right here.
Absolutely not! Its primary power source is a combustion engine; the fuel it uses for most of its range is petrol. At best it’s a part time electric car that drags around hundreds of kilos of engine, gearbox and petrol. Or a petrol car dragging around loads of batteries and a motor. I’m not totally against PHEV, they have a place for a short while in the transition for those having trouble adapting, but please don’t pretend it’s a proper EV.
I doubt that in the future NZ will import lots of new gas guzzlers:
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2021-01/Clean%20Car%20I…
Come on, get up with the play: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/521675/government-eases-too-string…
This government (and almost all others, but this one in particular) panders to petrol heads and any businesses so they don't have to change, even if its good for them.
Tax is a great tool for influencing buying habits. Set aside for one moment the fuel savings over the life time of an all electric vehicle.
Motor Trade Association (MTA), are on record stating the RUC system ended diesel engines for none commercial passenger cars sales in New Zealand.
The good news is the National lead Government are still keen to see all road users pay RUC. the following is a press release from transporting.nz. "Road freight peak body Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand has welcomed the announcement from Transport Minister Simeon Brown that legislation moving all light vehicles off fuel excise and into the Road User Charges system will be progressed next year, with the switch being implemented as soon as 2027".
My point is that roads are now engineered for the heavier trucks than we had 30 years ago. The roads we had 30 years ago didn't need much more for the cars we have today. I.e. our roads cost much more to make nowadays simply because the trucks have got heavier and it is the heavy vehicles that do the bulk of the damage.
But now we can do international business more efficiently, because we can carry fully loaded shipping containers to and from our dairy factories which we couldn’t do before.
If anything, we are going to need to look at increasing maximum gross weights again to accomodate battery powered trucks and their increased tare weight like the USA has done, and Australia is proposing to do.
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