Norway's roads went electric years before the rest of the world noticed
In 2021, 86.2 percent of new cars sold in Norway were plug-ins, the highest share anywhere. Worldwide, plug-ins took just 9 percent of new car sales that year. Where people buy electric cars depends heavily on prices, charging networks and government policy, and the gaps between countries are enormous.
Norway got there early. In March 2014 it became the first country where more than one in every hundred cars on the road was a plug-in; by 2021 the figure was 22 percent. The Netherlands, meanwhile, had the densest network of charging stations in the world by 2019.
China dwarfs everyone in raw numbers. By December 2023 it had 20.4 million plug-in passenger cars, nearly half the global fleet, and in 2019 it ran over 500,000 electric buses, 98 percent of the world's total. Europe had about 11.8 million plug-in cars at the end of 2023, while American buyers had purchased 7.04 million since 2010 by mid-2025, with California the biggest market.
Growth came from a tiny base. Between 2005 and 2009 the global fleet was entirely battery cars, rising from about 1,700 to almost 6,000. The arrival of the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt and Think City in December 2010 started mass production, and sales passed 565,000 in 2015. For comparison, the electric car's first golden age, early in the 20th century, peaked at about 30,000 vehicles. By 2025 electric car sales topped 20 million, a quarter of all new cars, though they still made up only about 5 percent of cars on the road.
Smaller markets show the range of approaches. Albania, which makes all its electricity from hydropower, puts electric cars in its police fleet, and Tirana began testing an electric bus in 2017. Bulgaria offers no purchase grants but waives road tax and lets electric cars park free in city centres, while Brazil taxes plug-ins and hybrids at more than 120 percent of the retail price.
Source: Electric car use by country
