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UK edges Germany to top Europe BEV market in 2024

  • : Battery materials
  • 25/01/07

Sales of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in the UK last year climbed by 21pc to 381,000 units, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), as the country overtook Germany to become the largest BEV market in Europe.

Sales in the UK climbed furthest towards the end of the year, driven by strong corporate subsidies (see graph). Sales in Germany slumped by 27pc to 380,609 units, as consumers continued to feel the loss of a €4,500 purchasing subsidy in December 2023.

Sales in France last year edged down by 2pc, and the halving of EV buyers' subsidies announced in November because of budget constraints is expected to weigh on sales further. France is Europe's third-largest market (see graph).

UK market stays open to China-made EVs

One reason for the UK's surge in BEV sales, after corporate incentives, is trade policy. The UK is one of the few established BEV markets without surplus tariffs on China-made BEVs, beyond unilateral 2.5pc duties agreed by member states of the World Trade Organisation (see graph). Japan, another unrestricted market, recorded just 4,531 units in November compared with 38,531 sales in the UK.

Sales of China-branded BEVs in western Europe have jumped to over 3pc of overall car sales in recent years, a sharp rise but still insignificant as a market share (see graph). But Chinese carmakers accounted for over a half of BEV sales in Europe — 51pc in January-September last year, up from 46pc a year earlier — according to market research firm JATO Dynamics.

UK corporate sales continue to prop up BEV sales

UK private sales to individuals accounted for just 1 in 10 BEV sales last month — of which there were 44,312 — according to SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes.

The remainder — around 89pc — were corporate car sales, much higher than the corporate sector's share of 68.5pc in the overall car sales market. This has risen sharply in recent years, from 57pc and 49pc in 2023 and 2022, respectively.

"At first glance, the apparent drop in demand from private buyers for electric cars may seem concerning. However, it reflects a fundamental shift in how we finance vehicles," Tom Barnard, analyst at Electrifying.com, said. "It's important to note that the sales figures from 2024 exclude private buyers who have benefited from the excellent deals on EVs available through salary sacrifice or personal lease schemes, as these are recorded as fleet registrations."

"Too many PCPs [personal contract purchases], contract hire, finance and motability purchases are recorded as fleet sales when they're being driven by private buyers," Quentin Wilson, founder of EV campaign group FairCharge, said. "We need to change the way these EV registrations are recorded, and fast."

UK BEV sales 2022-24

Europe's three largest BEV markets by sales

Tariffs on Chinese-made EVs of selected EV markets

West European new passenger car market share pc

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25/02/15

Peru backs Saudi critical minerals hub plan

Peru backs Saudi critical minerals hub plan

Munich, 15 February (Argus) — Peru's foreign minister Elmer Schialer today said he supports US policy backing Saudi Arabia's efforts to become a global critical minerals powerhouse, a strategy that aims to counterbalance China's dominance and bring down costs. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Schialer called the US approach "a good strategy". Schialer was responding to a question on whether the US' backing of Saudi Arabia's efforts to become a critical minerals refining and processing hub was a good idea. "I think we ought to give it a try, because when we have two, three or four main centers of refinement and the finalizing the product, the cost will also eventually go down, which is also very important, economically speaking," Schialer said. Led by the US, western countries are keen to loosen China's stranglehold on access to critical minerals. China controls about 90pc of the world's capacity for processing the minerals and has steadily tightened restrictions on exporting the materials and technology needed to process them. Beijing imposed new restrictions on exports to the US in late January in response to President Donald Trump's tariffs on imports to the US from China. Saudi Arabia in recent years has made strides in positioning itself on the global critical minerals map. As part of its economic diversification plan Vision 2030, the kingdom aims to strengthen local processing and industrial value added, while building supply chains that are more resilient to global disruptions. Saudi Arabia also has reiterated its commitment to developing its substantial reserves of copper, gold, rare earths, potash, and bauxite, while also expanding domestic electric vehicle manufacturing. Riyadh in January unveiled plans to develop a new mineral investment project valued at $100bn, $20bn of which was already in the final engineering phase or under construction. The kingdom's Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources increased its estimate of the value of its unexploited mineral resources from $1.3 trillion to $2.5 trillion in early 2024, boosted by new discoveries. State-controlled Aramco has also created a joint venture with Saudi state mining company Ma'aden to explore and produce energy transition minerals. By Bachar Halabi Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

DeepSeek AI integration to boost long-term metal demand


25/02/13
25/02/13

DeepSeek AI integration to boost long-term metal demand

Beijing, 13 February (Argus) — Increasing integration of DeepSeek's artificial intelligence (AI) models in China is likely to boost long-term demand for metals used in AI infrastructures and products, according to market participants. China's three largest telecommunications companies — China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom — have integrated DeepSeek's open source models, and provided exclusive computing power solutions and supporting environments for the DeepSeek-R1 model to help release the performance of the model, the country's industry and information technology ministry said on 9 February. Other major Chinese technology firms including Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent have also announced integration of DeepSeek's models into their cloud platforms. This is likely to accelerate these companies' development of intelligent applications. The country's largest electric vehicle (EV) maker BYD, which sold around 4.2mn EVs last year in China, on 11 February announced plans to integrate software from DeepSeek into 21 of its EV models, enabling the automaker to offer advanced autonomous driving features on all of its 18 models priced above 100,000 yuan ($13,686). DeepSeek's models offer performance for a low price, with its training cost reportedly significantly lower than other large language models. It provides responses comparable to other contemporary large language models, such as OpenAI's GPT-4o. The roll-out of DeepSeek's models is expected to provide low-cost, high-efficiency intelligent services for small and medium-sized companies and individual users, reduce the threshold for the use of AI technology, and accelerate the inclusion of AI technology. Metals demand This development is also likely to boost long-term demand for metals, particularly copper, aluminum, tungsten, molybdenum, gallium, germanium, battery metals and rare earths. AI operations rely on a large number of servers and data centres, with copper widely used in power distribution, grounding and interconnection of the data centres. Global copper demand from data centres is projected to exceed 1mn t by 2026, according to industry estimates. Rapid development of the AI industry is also boosting copper demand in grid systems. Aluminum is used in some cooling and structural components of data centres. Demand for indium phosphide (inP) photonic integrated circuit (PiC) technology from the data centre industry is also growing rapidly, driven by the heavy computing workloads required to support AI. AI growth and data centre demand is also expected to increase the use of compound semiconductor materials including gallium nitride and gallium arsenide. Molybdenum and tungsten can be used to manufacture high-temperature components and electrode materials used in some high-end AI hardware equipment. Rare earth metals also have key applications in AI-related magnetic and optical materials. A faster development of AI products has the potential to increase demand for neodymium iron and boron (NdFeB) material used in special micro-motors and servo motors, rare earth polishing powder used in wafer devices and rare earth magnets used in audio products. Some main domestic smartphone manufacturers such as Huawei, Honor and Oppo have also integrated DeepSeek's services into their products. This is likely to accelerate the development and consumer adoption of AI smartphones. Earlier industry estimates showed that shipments of AI smartphones would rise to 550mn units globally in 2027, making up more than 40pc of total phone shipments. About 30pc of cobalt and 7pc of global lithium production is consumed in the consumer electronics industry. Challenges DeepSeek's development is facing challenges outside China. The DeepSeek application was removed from Italy's app store in January owing to alleged data security concerns. Australia has banned the use of DeepSeek's technology on all government devices. Japanese companies such as Toyota, Mitsubishi and SoftBank have banned the use of DeepSeek for "information security issues". Texas in February became the first US state to ban the use of DeepSeek on government equipment. But the western countries' anxiety about DeepSeek may spur the development of their own AI industries. US president Donald Trump said that DeepSeek was a "wake-up call" for the US technology industry. South Korea's acting president Choi Sang-moo views DeepSeek as a "new impact", planning to pour 34 trillion won ($23.5bn) into the development of the AI and semiconductor industries. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Tesla sales slump on ageing line up, competition


25/02/12
25/02/12

Tesla sales slump on ageing line up, competition

London, 12 February (Argus) — US firm Tesla's electric vehicle (EV) sales have continued to fall this year — but as a result of structural factors, such as increased competition, duties and the arrival of Chinese carmakers in the market, and not because of chief executive Elon Musk's public profile, market participants have told Argus . Tesla's European sales fell by 11pc in 2024, having risen by 56pc in 2023 (see graph) . In January 2025, Tesla's sales fell by 63pc on the year in France, 59.5pc in Germany, 44.3pc in Sweden, and 37.9pc in Norway. The smaller 7.8pc fall in the non-EU UK could be explained by the different tariff regime. Some Tesla models sold in Europe are manufactured in Shanghai, and the UK has decided not to impose tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, while the EU imposed a 7.8pc duty on Tesla's Chinese-made EVs in October. Demand for Teslas in the UK, France, Germany and US began to decline in April last year, according to Ben Marks, founder of Electrify Research. Marks also pointed to "notable drops in July and October, by which time Tesla had fallen from the first to fourth-placed brand — trailing Audi, BMW and VW". According to a survey conducted last month by car testers Electrifying.com, of 455 non-EV drivers, 56pc would be happy to buy Chinese, while 59pc have been put off buying a Tesla by the public profile of chief executive Elon Musk, although some market participants pointed to other problems. "Tesla's problems are likely not to do with British motorists' perceptions of Elon Musk, and more to do with the fact that Tesla haven't released a new car since the Model Y, while its competitors have been playing catch-up," independent transport research organisation New AutoMotive's chief executive, Ben Nelmes, said. And with Chinese EV makers now in Europe, and over 130 mainstream EV models available in the UK, "competition has never been fiercer", Electrifying.com chief executive Ginny Buckley told Argus . "[Tesla's] dominance is no longer guaranteed." Meanwhile, Slovakian battery maker InoBat's vice-chair, Andy Palmer, said Tesla "needs to think long and hard about its positioning and product offers if it wants to stop bleeding market share". Tesla models also rely on production of a battery chemistry that is increasingly concentrated in China (see graph) . Standard-range versions of Tesla's best-selling Model 3 and Model Y both use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, rather than premium nickel-cobalt-manganese-based (NCM) batteries. And while input costs of LFP-based EVs have edged down to a discount to NCM-based EVs (see graphs) , domestic LFP production has enabled Chinese carmakers such as BYD to sell their models at prices that are increasingly competitive with Tesla . Tesla better placed to cope than legacy carmakers Tesla's Model Y is still comfortably the best-selling EV model, according to research firm Jato Dynamics. "One of the things with car sales, particularly retail sales — it's not logical, otherwise everyone would drive a Toyota Corolla. People drive the new shiny things. Tesla used to be the shiny thing with the Model Y, but not so much now," the founder of ratings service The Car Expert, Stuart Masson, told Argus . Until recently, Tesla "showed you don't have to make design changes for the sake of it" according to Masson, going against prevailing wisdom. Tesla's cars often still topped ratings for safety, battery efficiency and technology after 3-4 years on the road. Tesla is "better placed to cope" with Chinese competition because it "doesn't have a lot of legacy infrastructure", Masson added. The firm has never had dealers, as conventional carmakers have, or big showrooms that require steady monthly sales. Instead, it operates its own showrooms and interacts with customers directly over the internet, cutting out the middleman used by established dealer networks. Volkswagen, by contrast, "can't sack anyone in Germany because of the unions and local government that have seats on the board; they veto any attempts", Masson said. "It's haemorrhaging money, and it knows full well that most expensive factories are in Germany, but it can't get rid of them." Volkswagen Group's operating profit dropped by 42pc on the year to €2.9bn in the third quarter of 2024 and its operating margin was just 3.6pc. Tesla also makes a much bigger profit from EVs than any western car company, so it can better afford to reduce prices. The firm is also now much more than just a carmaker, Masson added, having launched an energy storage gigafactory in Shanghai this week. "From cars to battery storage, superchargers, robo-taxis and robo-vans, they've launched several concepts that have never gone to production, but they tend to find their feet in every market," Masson said. "I think it will still be okay, but we're not going to see continued growth of 100pc per year … I think there are a lot of car companies that are in far more trouble." By Chris Welch Tesla annual BEV sales in Europe China monthly battery production GWh NCM EV input material price model $ LFP EV input material price model $ Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

China’s BYD to add DeepSeek AI to its affordable EVs


25/02/11
25/02/11

China’s BYD to add DeepSeek AI to its affordable EVs

London, 11 February (Argus) — China's largest electric vehicle (EV) maker BYD on Tuesday announced plans to integrate software from AI start-up DeepSeek into 21 of its models at no extra cost, including one model under $10,000. All models with the God's Eye advanced driver assistant software (ADAS) will come at no extra cost, chairman Wang Chuanfu told an event livestreamed from Shenzhen. Chuanfu said autonomous driving would no longer be a rarity but a "necessary tool", one that will become an "indispensable tool like safety belts and airbags" within a few years. BYD said it would offer advanced autonomous driving features on all of its 18 models priced above 100,000 yuan ($13,686). The carmaker will also include AI on three models below Yn100,000. BYD had previously only offered ADAS on models above $30,000, in line with US EV maker Tesla, which has similar features on its EVs priced above $32,000. The system includes remote parking and autonomous highway navigation. Smart driving features in EVs require Argus -assessed metals such as gallium — in gallium nitride — and germanium in semiconductors. AI growth and data centre demand is expected to increase the use of compound semiconductor materials including gallium nitride, gallium arsenide and indium phosphide. BYD sold around 4.2mn EVs last year in China — including battery EVs (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs) — dominating the domestic market of 11mn EVs, up by 40pc on the year (see graphs) . DeepSeek integration threatens exports The integration of AI into BYD cars is the latest indication that competition in the Chinese EV market is hotting up, although several market participants fear that the integration of DeepSeek AI may threaten sales into export markets, particularly the US, where there is antipathy towards Chinese AI. Chinese EV maker Leapmotor, partner of carmaker Stellantis in Europe, launched its own smart-driving EV on Tuesday priced under Yn150,000 ($20,535), using its own AI. Prior to BYD, the cheapest affordable EV with comparable smart driving features was SAIC-GM-Wuling's $15,000 Baojun Yunhal model. Other Chinese EV makers have also announced integration of DeepSeek technology into their models. Chinese carmaker Geely Group — parent to brands such as Volvo and Polestar — announced that it will integrate the DeepSeek R1 model into its EVs, alongside its own Xingrui AI model, which it announced that it was training last month. It has largely distinguished software in its Geely brand The future of EVs is an "electric intelligence vehicle", Pan Jian, co-chair of CATL , the world's largest battery maker, said at the World Economic Forum last month, with intelligence fast becoming inseparable from EVs. By Chris Welch Global EV battery installations 2023-24 GWh Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Japan’s domestic EV sales extend fall in January


25/02/07
25/02/07

Japan’s domestic EV sales extend fall in January

Tokyo, 7 February (Argus) — Japanese domestic sales of passenger electric vehicles (EVs) fell for a 15th consecutive month in January, but the decrease rate has slowed. Sales totalled 4,563 units in January 2025, down by 2pc from a year earlier, according to data from three industry groups — the Automobile Dealers Association, the Japan Light Motor Vehicle and Motorcycle Association and the Japan Automobile Importers Association (JAIA). Sales were also down by 12pc on the month. Domestic EV sales continued to fall on the year but the decrease rate slowed in January, marking the first single-digit fall on the year since November 2023. EVs accounted for 1.4pc of Japan's total domestic passenger car sales in January, down by 0.2 percentage points from a year earlier. The decline is mostly because of weaker demand for domestic brand EVs including Toyota. Toyota's EV sales declined sharply to 68 units, down by 74pc from a year earlier. Foreign brand EV sales continued its uptrend, according to JAIA's representative who spoke to Argus . Sales of foreign brand passenger EVs increased by 3.6pc on the year to 1,209 units, marking the third consecutive month of year-on-year growth. But sales from China's BYD fell sharply by around 80pc on the year to 42 units, mostly on the back of delivery suspensions, JAIA added. Imported EVs accounted for around 26pc of Japan's total domestic EV sales. This was largely stable on the year, but down by 31 percentage points from a month earlier. Foreign brand manufacturers tend to increase their sales in December, according to JAIA, leading to relatively lower deliveries in January. By Yusuke Maekawa Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

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