EV Sales H1 2024: Europe Slowest Growing Region

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Europe is the slowest region of growth for electric vehicle (EV) sales so far this year, Rho Motion, the leading research house focused on the electric vehicle market, revealed today in their half yearly update.

Just under seven million electric vehicles have been sold globally in the passenger car and light-duty vehicle market in the first half of 2024, growing by 20% compared to the same period in 2023. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) account for 65% of global sales with the remaining 35% plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).

Snapshot electric vehicle sales in January–June 2024 vs. January–June 2023

• Global: 7.0 million in H1 2024, +20% y-o-y
• China: 4.1 million, +30%
• EU & EFTA & UK: 1.5 million, +1%
• USA & Canada: 0.8 million, +10%
• Rest of World: 0.6 million, +26%

Charles Lester, Lead EV Data Analyst at Rho Motion, said: “The global EV market can take comfort in the 20% growth shown in the first half of the year but the regional disparities are quite remarkable. Europe’s 1% growth compared to China’s 30% needs swift course correction if targets are to be met in the Western region. The other surprising twist of the year is the resurgence of PHEVs which were going out of style towards the end of last year but are now back in favour and accounting for more than one in three electric vehicles sold. The overall picture is that 2024 is not going to see the ambitious growth some may have hoped for the industry and we have lowered our forecasts by 5% to 16.6 million electric cars sold this year.”

EU & EFTA & UK

1.5 million EVs were sold in Europe in the first half of 2024, growing by only 1% compared to the same period in 2023. There have been mixed results in European growth, with sales in Germany falling by 9% in H1 2024 vs H1 2023, but sales in France and the United Kingdom have increased by 8% and 13%, respectively. Italy set a record for EV sales in June 2024 with almost 20,000 EVs sold following the release of its 2024 EV incentives. Despite this, sales in Italy have fallen by 11% this year so far.

China

Chinese EV sales have had the fastest growth compared to the major regions, with 4.1 million units sold so far this year versus 3.2 million over the same period in 2023. The share of PHEVs has made a come back as the market share has risen by 8 percentage points in 2023 to 41% in 2024. This is due to the rising number of PHEVs available from car manufacturers, the growth in Range Extender Electric Vehicle sales (REEVs), and strong growth from BYD who sold a record-high number of electric vehicles in June 2024. Of the 0.34 million passenger cars sold by BYD in June 2024, 195,032 were PHEVs and 145,179 were BEVs, setting another record high for PHEVs.

USA & Canada

The US & Canada EV market whilst off to a shaky start at the beginning of the year showed positive signs in the second quarter of the year. GM increased its BEV sales by 34% in the second quarter vs the first quarter of the year, Ford by 18%, and Honda introduced its Prologue SUV and the Acura ZDX in Q2. General Motors has also been ramping up production in Mexico producing almost 60,000 BEVs in H1 2024. This includes the Chevrolet Blazer, Chevrolet Equinox, Honda Prologue, and most recently the Cadillac Optiq.

Battery Demand Half Year Summary

Battery demand in H1 2024 exceeded 510GWh across all end use markets, an increase of 23% compared to last year revealed research house, Rho Motion, today. EV Battery demand accounted for 72% of this, with EV sales reaching seven million units in the first half of the year. The stationary storage market saw the strongest y-o-y growth of close to 50%.

Iola Hughes, Head of Research at Rho Motion, said: “Amongst so much battery market negativity, the real upside of the year is the stationary storage market which is growing faster than the EV battery market. This is due to the frequency and size of projects entering operation increasing as more markets open themselves up to storage. The battery market is on track to surpass the 1.2TWh mark by the end of the year across all end-uses.”

“Amidst the EV & battery slow down, cell manufacturers are being impacted, with Chinese players typically faring much better than their Korean and Japanese counterparts. In the first half of 2024 LG Energy Solution, SK On and Panasonic all saw their batteries deployed in EVs fall compared to H1 2023 as EV slowdown hits them the hardest. This comes at a time of raised concern from a number of these players, with SK On declaring a state of ‘emergency management’ this week.”

At a regional level China grew 29% y-o-y, accounting for just under 50% of global battery demand this quarter. In the US & Canada, y-o-y growth was 23% with battery demand in the stationary storage market more than doubling. The weakest growth was seen in Europe, increasing just 8% y-o-y, with notable decline in EV sales seen in Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland

In the EV market in the first half of 2024 has grown by 20% globally and yet regional growth in Europe has slowed considerably down to 1%. Meanwhile in China there was a 30% year on year increase in EV sales and 10% in North America.

In terms of the battery manufacturer landscape, Rho Motion noted a large spread of growth rates in the first half of the year with Chinese players typically faring better than their Korean and Japanese counterparts. This comes at a time of raised concern from a number of these players, with SK On declaring a state of ‘emergency management’ this week.

Looking at battery technology in the EV market, LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) continues to dominate the market in China, and NCM (Lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides) outside of China. We witnessed LMFP and sodium ion batteries enter the mix in the final months of 2023 and are now seeing low, but consistent, sales of EVs with these batteries.

In the stationary storage market over 75GWh of new capacity entered operation, more than in the whole year in 2022. Over 500 grid-scale projects entered operation in H1 2024, four of which were larger than 1GWh, with the largest a 1.4GWh project in California. In 2024, there are 18 projects over 1GWh planned to enter operation, compared to just four that entered operation in 2023.

A similar picture of cell manufacturer competition is seen in the storage market, with the skew of growth much higher towards Chinese players due to the popularity of cheap LFP cells in storage, ultimately leading to a continued decline in market share for the Korean cell manufacturers, who at present do manufacturer LFP at scale. In China, four sodium ion battery projects came online in the first half of 2024, as well as the first semi-solid state battery projects.

For the full year 2024 battery demand across all end use markets is set to increase by 20-25% y-o-y compared to 2023, which was the first year to surpass the 1TWh battery demand mark.

Source: Rho Motion