The world bought about 21 million new electric cars in 2025, up from 17 million a year earlier, according to the International Energy Agency's Global EV Outlook 2026. China bought 13 million of them. The rest of the world together bought about 8 million. The same pattern shows up in chargers, scooters and buses. We turned the IEA's country data into five new charts, each listing the top 25 countries.
| Chart | Leader | Value | Second |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electric Car Sales by Country 2025 | China | 13 million | United States · 1.5 million |
| Electric Cars on the Road by Country 2025 | China | 44 million | United States · 7.8 million |
| Public EV Charging Points by Country 2025 | China | 4.68 million | South Korea · 491,170 |
| Electric Two- and Three-Wheeler Sales by Country 2025 | China | 7.4 million | India · 2.1 million |
| Electric Bus Sales by Country 2025 | China | 40,000 | India · 4,300 |
Electric car sales
After China, the largest markets were the United States with 1.5 million, slightly down from 1.6 million in 2024, and Germany, which jumped from 570,000 to 860,000. Sales at least doubled in Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico. Norway sold only about 170,000 electric cars, but they were 97% of all new cars there, the highest share in our earlier chart of electric car share of new car sales.
Electric cars on the road
The global fleet of plug-in cars reached about 75 million at the end of 2025. China had 44 million of them. Norway's 1.1 million electric cars were 36% of all its cars on the road, the highest share of any country the IEA covers.
Public chargers
There were about 6.97 million public charging points worldwide, 4.68 million of them in China. South Korea came second with 491,170, mostly slow chargers, which works out at about 1.7 electric cars per public point. In Norway the figure was about 35.
Scooters, motorcycles and rickshaws
About 11 million electric two- and three-wheelers were sold in 2025. China sold 7.4 million, more than the rest of the world combined. India sold 2.1 million, more than ten times its 170,000 electric cars, and Vietnam 740,000.
Buses
Electric bus sales reached about 70,000 worldwide, 40,000 of them in China. The United States sold 1,800, down from 3,000 in 2024. In Denmark 71% of new buses sold were electric.
How we checked the numbers
The IEA publishes its country figures rounded to two significant figures, so several countries share identical values. We compared the car sales with full-year 2025 registrations from ACEA, the European carmakers' association: for ten European countries the two sources are within 2.9% of each other, and for France ACEA's count is 3.2% lower. For more on the raw materials behind EV batteries, see our post on lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite.