In a report on the market growth of E-Vehicles, EV-volumes.com has published that Germany has sold nearly 40,000 plug-in electric passenger cars and light-duty commercial vehicles this year — representing a 106% growth rate over the same period of time in 2016 (first 9 months), when 18,300 units were sold.

The largest automotive market in Europe was slow to get into the race, but it has woken up this year, delivering the largest growth volume in Europe, being solely responsible for half of the sales increase in Europe.

The German car industry seems to have finally embraced EVs, competing with ambitious goals for their EV portfolios, sales targets and battery industry expansion, and that effort is already visible this year in its home market, as German plug-ins are growing faster (+138 %) than the PEV average (+106 %). The accentuated growth of the German PEV market is set to continue throughout 2018, surpassing Norway as the largest plug-in market in Europe.

This makes Germany the 4th biggest plug-in electric vehicle market in the world, after China, the US, and Norway.

With regard to sales during September — growth remained strong, with a total of 6,150 plug-in electric vehicle registrations in Germany during the month, representing an 84% year-on-year increase. Altogether, some 55,000 to 60,000 plug-in electric vehicles are expected to be sold in Germany during 2017 — which compares to a total of 28,000 during 2016.

EV-Volumes adds: “The largest automotive market in Europe was a sleeping giant when it came to plug-ins, [trailing] other markets like the United Kingdom or France, but it has woken up this year, delivering the largest growth volume in Europe, being solely responsible for half of the sales increase in Europe.”

As regards the share of the overall auto market in Germany held by all-electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), in September that got near the 2% threshold. So, obviously, there is still quite a lot of room for growth, but things are slowly improving. EV-Volumes predicts that plug-in electric vehicle market share in Germany may climb to around 3% by September 2018.

India has repeatedly expressed its intention to aggressively jump into the EV space, but on the ground level, the country is still struggling with policies. There is a lot of buzz around Electric Vehicles, but the rate at which EV infrastructure is getting built to support it is not very impressive.