Credit: Johannes Simon/Getty Images

Here's some good news for a Friday afternoon: For 2025 through August, global electric vehicle sales have grown by 25 percent compared to the same eight months in 2024, according to the analysts at Rho Motion. That amounts to 12.5 million EVs, although the data combines both battery EVs and plug-in hybrid EVs for the total.

However, that's for global sales. In fact, EV adoption is moving even faster in Europe, which has grown by 31 percent so far this year (Rho says that BEV sales grew by 31 percent but PHEV sales by just 30 percent)—a total of 2.6 million plug-in vehicles. In some European countries, the increase has been even more impressive: up by 45 percent in Germany, 41 percent in Italy, and by 100 percent in Spain.

But despite a number of interesting new EVs from Renault and the various Stellantis-owned French automakers, EV sales in France are down by 6 percent so far, year on year.

Tesla has seen none of this sales growth in Europe, however—as we noted last month, this region's Tesla sales collapsed by 40 percent in July.

China had bought an additional 7.6 million new EVs between January and August of this year, although this growth slowed in July and August, partially as a consequence of robust sales during those months in 2024 thanks to Chinese government policies. And as also noted last month, BYD recently saw a drop in profitability and has downgraded its sales target by 900,000 vehicles (down to 4.6 million) for this year.

Meanwhile, here in North America, things aren't quite so hot. EV sales are still growing but barely—up just 6 percent between January and August 2025 compared to the same time period in 2024. August was actually a good month for EV sales in the US as consumers rushed to dealerships to take advantage of the IRS 30D tax credit for clean vehicles, which disappears at the end of September.

That's a result of anti-EV policies put in place by President Trump and Republicans in Congress, and it's far from the only one. Other tax credits intended to foster EV adoption by businesses are also being eradicated. The Environmental Protection Agency is no longer fining automakers for failing to meet fleet averages, and the Trump administration has clawed back money earmarked for charging infrastructure.

"Global EV sales have now reached 12.5 million units in the opening eight months of the year," said Rho Motion data manager Charles Lester. "The North American market has reached a record monthly high as consumers in the US accelerate purchases to take advantage of the tax credit before it expires at the end of September. Momentum remains in Europe, underpinned by the emissions legislation, with major automotive countries, Germany and the UK, growing by 45 percent and 31 percent [year to date], respectively. [Year on year] growth in the Chinese market slowed in July–August 2025, however, this is compared to a period where subsidies for the auto trade-in scheme increased last year, which spurred on EV demand in the country," Lester said.