As the global economy has recovered strongly this year, car sales have rebounded too. Globally, they are set to grow by 4% in 2021, according to the auto industry tracker MarkLines, reaching close to 80 million and making up part of the huge drop they experienced in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, electric car sales have continued to show their resilience to volatility in the wider car market. In a few key car markets – such as Germany (above 34%), the United Kingdom (28%), France (over 23%) and China (18%) – the market share of electric cars reached record levels as of late November1. To date, around 34 countries have announced policies that set a future deadline for banning new registrations of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. This has been accompanied by announcements from automakers such as Ford, Volkswagen and General Motors of plans to phase out ICE cars from their production lines. Yet, even if global electric car sales in 2021 end up meeting the most optimistic expectations, SUV sales are still set to be five times higher.
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