EV growth rose again in 2024, despite media & political lies saying otherwise

In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year, according to a new report by Rho Motion. This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.

However, an entire year of false political, media and industry statements might have had you thinking otherwise.

You’ve probably heard this lie many times over the course of more than a year: that, supposedly, EV sales are in trouble, and are slowing drastically.

This myth has been pushed by many, in many forms, with varying levels of wrongness. The position has been so pervasive that it might as well be universal – it has been taken as accepted fact that EV sales are down, even though they simply aren’t.

Sometimes it has been an intentional distortion from actors who oppose the growth of clean-air vehicles, but the attitude has become so pervasive that many have repeated it unthinkingly, without actually looking at the data. And thus this misinformation has become oft-repeated common knowledge, despite being incorrect.

But today, Rho Motion, an electric vehicle research consultancy, is out with a new report showing what we knew all along – that EV sales are still growing strongly.

No, EV sales didn’t slow

One form of this misinformation says that EV sales are down – which is to say that fewer people are buying EVs now than were in the past. This is phenomenally untrue – per the data at the end of the year (and quarterly data mid-year as well, as we pointed out), EV sales grew and set records in every territory around the world in 2024 except Europe, where they were down just 3%.

Rho Motion’s report, out today, shows that EV sales increased in all regions other than Europe, and across the globe as a whole. China experienced the largest growth at 40%, with North America growing by 9% and the “rest of the world” growing at 27%.

But even the European numbers are misleading, given that European EV sales were mostly up outside of its largest country Germany, which saw a decrease due to the country ending EV incentives in late 2023, leading to a pull-forward in demand and subsequent drop in sales.

But outside of that one region, driven largely by an end in incentives in one country, the rest of the world’s regions, and the globe itself, saw a drastic increase in EV sales.

This rise happened despite the world’s largest EV maker, Tesla, seeing its first sequential decline in sales since 2011, dragging down a market that may have otherwise risen even faster. Tesla’s sales drop was driven less by overall EV disinterest, as proven by continued EV growth across the world, and more by stale models and an incompetent CEO who has abandoned the mission of the company and cozied up with anti-EV interests, thus turning away customers.

No, EV sales growth didn’t slow, either

Another, lighter form of misinformation repeated throughout the last year stated that EV sales growth has slowed. There’s a difference between this statement and saying that sales are down – many headlines described EV sales as falling, cooling, slowing, etc., but those words would apply to a decrease, when in fact EV sales increased.

EV sales “growth” is different, and after so many people lied saying that EV sales were going down, some instead took the lighter position that EV sales would simply not grow as much in 2024 as they had in 2023. The suggestion here was that the rate of change of EV sales (that is, the second derivative of sales numbers) would reduce, and that that signaled trouble.

But we now know that even that assertion is wrong.

Looking into Rho Motion’s data for the last couple years, the world sold 17.1 million plug-in cars in 2024. In 2023, the world sold 13.6 million, and in 2022, the world sold 10.4 million. Rho Motion’s numbers do include both BEVs and PHEVs, but not cars without a plug.

Let’s look at the difference between those numbers. In 2023, EV sales grew by 3.2 million units across the world. But in 2024, EV sales grew by 3.5 million, which for those in the back is in fact a bigger number than 3.2 million.

This means that not only did EV sales grow in 2024, but the rate of growth even went up on a unit basis.

This rise in growth is obscured by using percentages rather than raw numbers (showing 31% growth in 2023, but 25% in 2024, as these numbers do), because any number that starts small and rapidly grows will inevitably experience lower percentage growth over time.

If, for example, your company sold 100 units in one year, then 1,000 units in the next, then 9,000 units in the next year, you would clearly understand that the third year is your best year in sales, and your biggest year of growth, as you added +8,000 unit sales compared to the previous year’s +900 unit sales growth.

But if you look at it on a percentage basis, your growth just went down from +900% to +800%. Even though your company is clearly doing increasingly better, you’ve added far more employees than ever before, your revenues are at an order of magnitude they’ve never reached before, etc., someone who is looking for impossible, infinitely-continuing exponential growth could try to look at this and claim that your company is doing worse than it was.

So, even these arguments focusing on slower sales growth are misleading. EV sales went up in 2024, and they went up by more than they did in the previous year. Some of us thought at the beginning of 2024 that this may end up being the case, even in the face of all this disinformation from anti-EV forces in media, industry and politics. Those of us who predicted that are vindicated, now that all the cards are on the table.

Gas car sales are in long-term decline

Meanwhile, one thing that all of these headlines ignore is that gas car sales are in long-term decline.

Among all the false focus on EV sales throughout the year, relatively fewer headlines have noted that global gas car sales hit their peak in 2017, have not hit that peak again, and likely will never hit that peak again. They’re down about a quarter from that peak, and show no signs of recovering, as it’s likely that any increase in vehicle sales will be taken up by growth in EV sales, not gas car sales.

So the growth in EV sales should look even stronger when compared to the long-term weakness of gas car sales.

This is great news for the world, and for everyone’s health, as gas cars create pollution that damages every organ in the body, kills millions of people per year, and is a primary driver of climate change which is already causing an uptick in natural disasters and threatens to displace over a billion people.

Of course, cars themselves, regardless of powertrain, still have numerous other negative environmental effects, and a shift to micromobility and mass transit would be even more environmentally preferable. But as long as gas cars are unfortunately still being made, seeing them trend downward and be replaced by vehicles that don’t spew poison from their tailpipes during every second of operation should be cause for celebration for all living things on Earth.

But what isn’t great is that, even with today’s news showing how false all of these headlines have been throughout the year, we’re not sure any of this is going to stop in our current post-truth era. The lies have not just been proven wrong today, but were wrong all along – EV sales weren’t down at any point over the course of the last year, but people kept ignoring the data and saying it.

Why does it matter? These lies influence policy – and cause more pollution

All of this matters because these constant incorrect statements have caused changes in plans for both automakers and governments who are pulling back their EV targets, and because it contributes to incorrect consumer perceptions which in turn actually can affect demand, all of which dooms humanity to worse health and climate outcomes.

Early on as this pattern of lies started to show itself in the media, David Reichmuth of the Union of Concerned Scientists suggested that one motivation behind the false headlines could be to influence regulations. The idea goes that, by pretending EV sales were “cooling,” despite that they were not, automakers could convince governments to pull back on their future commitments, thus allowing them to continue business as usual instead of having to put in effort to make actually good cars that don’t poison everything around them.

But those regulations already passed and timelines were loosened after automaker whining, so congratulations, you got what you wanted. You get to do little to change, you left open the door for new entrants to take over your industry, and you get to poison people a bit more for a few more years. You can stop lying now.

And yet, the headlines continued, and so many outlets continued to push the same false narrative that they had for more than a year claiming that EV sales are down. Some number of consumers who hear these constant falsehoods may have their EV buying decisions delayed as a result, which could in turn have suppressed EV sales below the even higher level that they might have been at without so much incorrect reporting.

And yes, higher EV sales growth rates would be preferable to the current status quo and are needed to meet climate targets. Or rather, a faster decline in gas car sales is what’s truly needed – and would be beneficial to all living beings on this planet.

The environment cannot wait, and humans can’t spend the next 10-20 years breathing down the poison coming out of the tailpipe of each gas-powered vehicle sold today. This needs to end and it needs to end now. The faster we act, the easier it will be for the world to reach carbon reductions that are objectively necessary to achieve.

So stop lying about EV sales trends

But overall, the point of this article is that media headlines and political statements suggesting a slowdown in EV sales are simply incorrect. And it’s hard to imagine that these headlines, which continued for more than a year, were not intentional.

Each journalist, politician, or auto company CEO who perpetuated the myth of an EV sales slowdown could have read any one of our articles, or googled a single number showing year-over-year EV sales in any region or for most countries and most brands, and found that outside of a few outliers, they are still going up. The information is out there and easy to find.

Today’s report ought to be the final nail in the coffin that gets people to stop repeating this nonsense. Thankfully, we’ve seen it less in the last couple months, so hopefully it’s petering out by now, but we expect this falsehood will still linger on in some realms. But if you hear it, now you know the truth: EV sales are up, and they were up more in 2024 than they were in 2023.

Know what else is growing? Home solar! Find a reliable and competitively priced solar installer near you on EnergySage, for free. They have pre-vetted installers competing for your business, ensuring high-quality solutions and 20-30% savings. It’s free, with no sales calls until you choose an installer. Compare personalized solar quotes online and receive guidance from unbiased Energy Advisers. Get started here. – ad*