ISTANBUL

Electric vehicle (EV) sales broke a record in October with 1.7 million units in sales, driven by strong demand in China, according to UK-based Rho Motion research house on Wednesday.

The sales were up 35% year-on-year and 3% month-on-month, Rho Motion data showed.

“The global EV market is now picking back up again, hitting record sales for the second month in a row,” said Charles Lester, data manager at Rho Motion, “Most of the growth is coming from China and Western manufacturers are clearly feeling threatened by this.”

China’s EV market made up the largest portion of sales last month with 1.2 million units sold, registering a record monthly increase of 6% while soaring more than 50% year-on-year.

Chinese EV maker, BYD, reported more than 500,000 units sold in October, a record monthly increase of 80,000 units for the company. The record high was due to the growth in plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) sales, said Rho Motion.

BYD’s exports maintained their steady course of the last three months with more than 30,000 units sold.

The UK, the EU and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland combined to register a little more than 260,000 EV sales in October with a 1% annual growth. There was a 14% monthly decline due to plummeting EV sales in the UK.

While the German EV market grew 12% month-on-month and 3% on an annual basis, the year-to-date sales were down 18%, contributing to little growth in annual figures. Europe’s largest automaker, Germany-based Volkswagen, said it would shut down three German production plants to cut costs while lowering cell production plans.

At the same time, carmakers Nissan and Svolt announced they would reduce their production in the EU due to underperformance in the market, and the latter said it would shut its European operations completely by January 2025. BYD and other Chinese carmakers still plan to bring EV production to the EU.​​​​​​​

In the US and Canada, meanwhile, General Motors produced more than 120,000 units of fully-electric SUVs -- the Chevrolet Equinox EV and the Blazer EV -- while the production of the Honda Prologue at its Mexico plant came ahead by 50,000 units of the two Chevrolet EVs.

As for the first 10 months of the year, global EV sales rose 24% year-on-year to 13.3 million.

China was ahead with 38% growth to 8.4 million units, followed by the UK, the EU and the EFTA combined with a 3% decline to 2.5 million, the US and Canada with a 9% increase to 1.4 million, while the EV sales in the rest of the world soared 27% to 1 million units.​​​​​​​