China already the clear powerhouse in electric cars
Chinese manufacturers account for less than half of market share in China, the world’s biggest, but on electric vehicles domestic companies have an almost 90pc market share
Electric car sales in the US are set to rise nearly 30 per cent in 2017, according to Genevieve Cullen, president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, calling it “a notably good year” for the country’s sellers.
But the raw number of pure-electric and plug-in hybrid cars sold still won’t top 200,000, which represents barely more than 1 per cent of the total 17 million cars and light trucks sold.
“There’s been a lot of publicity, but on the demand front, nothing has moved the needle much,” said Haig Stoddard, industry analyst at WardsAuto.
In fact, a mix of hype and publicity about future products is what marked 2017 on the electric car front, along with the realisation that carmakers around the world are particularly under pressure from a burgeoning electric car industry in China, the world’s biggest car market.
Chinese manufacturers account for less than 50 per cent of market share in China, with American, European, Korean and Japanese companies making up the rest.