One in Four New Cars Is Now Electric — and the Numbers Keep Climbing

The shift to electric driving is no longer a forecast for the distant future — it is happening on the world's roads right now. According to the International Energy Agency's Global EV Outlook 2026, electric car sales are on track to reach 23 million vehicles this year, equal to about 28% of all new cars sold worldwide. In other words, nearly three in ten new cars rolling out of showrooms in 2026 are expected to plug in rather than fill up.

The momentum builds on a record year. In 2025, global electric car sales exceeded 20 million units, a 20% increase that meant roughly one in every four new cars sold worldwide was already electric. The growth is broad-based: Europe sold 4.2 million EVs in 2025, up 30%, while India's sales leapt 75% to 165,000 vehicles, and even Africa climbed from 4,000 EVs in 2023 to 25,000 in 2025.

“According to the International Energy Agency's Global EV Outlook 2026, electric car sales are on track to reach 23 million vehicles this year, equal to about 28% of all new cars sold worldwide.”

Several forces are driving the change at once. Battery prices keep falling, charging infrastructure is expanding rapidly — about 1.8 million new public charging points were added in 2025, bringing the global total to 7 million — and many governments continue to support the transition. Every kilometre driven on electricity instead of petrol or diesel cuts the tailpipe emissions and urban air pollution that harm both the climate and human lungs.

The road ahead is not perfectly smooth. Sales dipped about 8% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier, as demand softened in China and the United States, a reminder that growth can be uneven across regions and policy cycles. Even so, the longer arc is clear: electric vehicles have moved from niche to mainstream faster than almost anyone predicted a decade ago. With roughly a quarter of new cars already electric and the share still rising, the cleaner, quieter future of transport is arriving one driveway at a time.