Nations with the Most EV Sales Per Hour, Adjusted for Population

The US sells about 105 EVs per hour. That sounds like a lot, but gas-powered cars sell at a pace of about 1,750 per hour.

US EV adoption is well behind the expectations of five years ago. Ford pledged to invest $30 billion in EV development and production, and the Biden administration set a goal of EVs making up 50% of new car sales by 2030. The auto industry warned that without federal assistance, the goal was not feasible.

It now appears nearly impossible to reach that goal. Today, only about 5% of new car sales in the US are EVs. Part of the problem is that the $7,500 federal tax credit for many new EV purchases lapsed at the end of September. US EV sales fell 20% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period the year before.

Worldwide, EV sales topped 20 million units last year, according to the IEA, driven largely by China. Fifty-five percent of new cars sold in China last year were EVs, though that growth has since slowed. China is by far the world’s largest car market. Much of the rest of the global increase came from adoption across Europe, according to Reuters.

Comparing EV sales from nation to nation is difficult without context. In Norway, EVs make up about 95% of new car sales. The country, one of the world’s largest oil producers, offers large incentives to EV buyers. Without tax incentives, US EV sales are among the lowest in the world, and they fell further as the credit ended.

Climatecrisis247 created an unorthodox but instructive way to compare EV sales across nations: measuring each country against the US. The most telling figure is “EVs per hour if the country had the US population.”

The results show very high adoption rates in the Scandinavian nations. They also show that, despite China’s high raw sales numbers, it ranks well down the list compared with many other nations. And they confirm that US EV adoption is among the lowest in the world.

Methodology: We divided each country’s EV sales per hour by its population, then multiplied by the US population of about 342 million. Sales figures cover the first half of 2026 and come from Kelley Blue Book/Cox Automotive (US), the China Passenger Car Association (China), and the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, or ACEA (Europe and the UK). Population figures come from the United Nations World Population Prospects, published by the UN’s Population Division (UN DESA).

How might these numbers change? Several factors matter. EV adoption becomes more likely if gas prices stay near $4 in the US and $8 in the EU. As Norway, China, and the US have shown, tax incentives drive adoption. And, as it has for years, buyers’ concern about range per charge and the availability of charging stations remains a barrier.

Country	Actual EVs per hour	EVs per hour at US population
Denmark	18.6	1,060
Norway	16.5	1,008
Luxembourg	1.8	897
Iceland	0.7	642
Belgium	19.2	552
Sweden	13.5	436
Germany	84.7	347
Austria	9.2	342
United Kingdom	65.5	323
Ireland	4.6	294
Netherlands	14.7	279
France	55.6	277
Portugal	8.0	256
Finland	4.1	250
Switzerland	6.4	244
Europe (EU + EFTA + UK)	370	237
Slovenia	1.4	227
European Union	281	214
Malta	0.3	203
China	718	174
Italy	18.3	106
United States	105	105
Spain	14.5	101
Cyprus	0.2	74
Czechia	2.0	62
Hungary	1.7	62
Lithuania	0.4	50
Greece	1.2	40
Slovakia	0.6	39
Croatia	0.4	36
Latvia	0.2	36
Poland	3.8	35
Estonia	0.1	35
Bulgaria	0.5	25
Romania	1.3	23