Sweden remains an odd plug-in vehicle market in which plug-in hybrids heavily outweigh full electrics. Part of that may be because Volvo Cars only sells plug-in hybrids so far, and Volvo is sort of popular in Sweden.
The Swedish auto market, like other auto markets but not as extreme, saw its numbers crash (again) in April. The overall auto market was down 38% year over year. Also like in other markets, plug-in vehicles did better than the overall market. They actually saw a sales increase in April.
In Belgium in March, auto sales were down a whopping 48%, but plug-in vehicle sales were up 39%! In the first quarter of the year, plug-in vehicle sales were up 91%. No rounding error.
Yes, the Swedish electric vehicle market is an odd one in which approximately 80% of electric vehicle sales are plug-in hybrids, leaving only 20% of the market for fully electric vehicles. Most EV markets are around 50–50 or favor fully electric vehicles (BEVs). Nonetheless, an overall EV market share of 26% is a stunning achievement in early 2020.
Sweden probably isn’t one of the first countries that come to mind when talking about electric vehicle leaders, but plug-in vehicles have a higher market share there than in almost any other country in the world. In 2019, 11% of auto sales were sales of plug-in vehicles.
Norway gets most of the glory for electric vehicle sales leadership, or China does for the sheer volume of sales there (approximately half of the global market), but there are a few other country markets with notable electric vehicle market share (if not volume) that are fun to track and interesting to compare to Norway. One of those markets is Sweden, which very quietly sits near the top of EV market share rankings.
