The latest statistics from automotive research firm New Automotive have revealed that plug-in vehicles now make up around 30% of all new car registrations.
New Automotive’s Global EV Tracker for March 2025 shows that 1.04 million battery electric cars were registered worldwide last month, the highest total recorded for the month of March and 152,000 more sales than March 2024—representing a 17% rise.
Much of this rise was unsurprisingly led by the Chinese market, where 646,170 new electric vehicles (EVs) were registered in March 2025 – a rise of 88,000 units from March 2024. Second in the rankings for the past month was the US, where 115,309 new EVs were registered, followed by the UK, where 68,298 new EVs were registered.
Last month marked the best ever UK month for EV registrations, with UK EV registrations 19,000 more than March of 2024. However, New Automotive notes that the UK’s car market for both EV and internal combustion engine vehicles is highly seasonal, which booms in sales taking place each year when new license plate categorisations launch every March and September.
Plug-in vehicles—including both battery electric cars and plug–in hybrids—made up 30% of all global registrations, up 15% from March of last year. Notably, battery EV is the fastest-growing fuel type for vehicles across Europe, with battery electric vehicles making up a 15.2% market share across Europe, plug-in hybrid vehicles making up an 8%, market share and hybrids 36% in the year to date.
Across Europe, registrations of petrol and diesel vehicles have fallen by a fifth, down to 29%, and a quarter, down to 10%, respectively, in the last year. Across Europe, registrations of battery electric vehicles rose in 21 markets and fell in only six markets, while petrol vehicle registrations fell in 23 of 27 markets. The only large-scale European markets to see a decline in EV registrations last month were France and the Netherlands, and both markets have seen overall growth in EV registrations in the year to date.
In the UK, battery electric vehicles made up 20.8% market share in the first quarter of this year, up from 15.5% in the same quarter the previous year. However, like many other key EV advocates, New Automotive has strongly criticised the UK government’s watering down of transport decarbonisation standards, arguing that “the UK government must recognise the high skill jobs in charging, infrastructure and generation which are at stake in the transition”.
