49 of the 56 countries Ember tracks now sell a bigger share of EVs than America

Battery electric vehicles made up just 6 percent of light-duty vehicle sales in America in the first eight months of 2026, and that share now trails 49 of the 56 countries that Ember follows. Fifteen of those countries passed the United States for the first time this year, among them India and Brazil, two large markets that now sell a bigger share of battery EVs than America does.

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The ranking comes from Ember, an energy think tank, and it measures share of new sales rather than the number of cars sold, a distinction that matters for how the result should be read.

Ember’s 56-country ranking and the 6 percent U.S. share

Ember published the ranking on Oct. 14 alongside an analysis of oil displaced by electric cars. Its announcement states that 49 of the 56 tracked countries now have a higher battery-electric share of sales than the United States, and that the U.S. figure was 6 percent of light-duty sales for January through August. The tracker itself, a monthly dataset covering 56 countries, accounted for more than 90 percent of global electric car sales in 2025 and was last updated on Oct. 14, 2026.

Battery vehicles are the measure here. Plug-in hybrids are counted separately, and the share is each drivetrain’s registrations divided by registrations of all drivetrains, according to Ember’s methodology document. The same document says Ember compiles monthly new-car registrations from national registration authorities, statistics offices and industry associations such as ACEA, treats the European Union as a sum of its 27 members, and scales the covered countries, about 80 percent of global car sales in 2025, to produce a world estimate. A battery vehicle, in this accounting, is a car powered only by a battery charged from the grid.

The methodology also flags a comparability wrinkle. Ember’s dataset mostly refers to new passenger cars, but publishers differ: the United States is reported as light-duty vehicles, which include cars, SUVs, pickups and vans, while Brazil’s and Thailand’s figures include light commercial vehicles and pickups. Ember notes that shares are more comparable across countries than raw totals, and the 49-of-56 result is a comparison of shares.

India, Brazil and the 15 countries that overtook the United States

The 15 newcomers named in the release include India, Brazil, Italy, Malaysia and New Zealand. GreenTech Lead’s summary of the announcement reports that India’s battery-electric share has been higher than the U.S. share every month since April 2026, and that domestic makers Tata and Mahindra together accounted for more than 60 percent of India’s electric car sales in the first half of the year.

The same report, which counts India among the 15 countries that passed the United States this year, cautions that a higher share does not mean India sells more electric cars in absolute terms. The comparison is about the proportion of new cars that plug in, so a market can rank above the United States while still selling far fewer electric cars than its raw population or car market might suggest. Ember’s tracker is built to compare shares for exactly that reason.

Other markets cleared the bar for different reasons. South Korea’s battery-electric sales doubled from a year earlier to reach almost one-quarter of new car sales in 2026, according to GreenTech Lead. France’s social leasing scheme pushed its battery share above 30 percent for the first time, and Germany’s new consumer subsidies, introduced at the start of 2026, lifted sales there. In Chile, Australia and New Zealand, the report adds, oil supply disruptions are accelerating the shift alongside India.

A slipping U.S. share in a rising world market

The timing of the U.S. slide lines up with a change in policy. Electrek’s coverage of the release notes that federal electric-vehicle tax credits were rolled back in September 2025, and an earlier Electrek report on Benchmark Mineral Intelligence data showed North American EV sales of about 1 million for January through August 2026, down 21 percent, with a pull-forward buying rush in late summer 2025 distorting the comparison. Limited supply also weighs on sales as automakers cancel electric models.

Elsewhere the direction is the opposite, and Electrek’s account of the release adds that Japan’s battery-electric sales doubled in 2026 after a policy eased upfront costs. Globally, battery-electric sales rose 11 percent in the first eight months of 2026, and they reached 18 percent of new car sales, up from 16 percent a year earlier, while plug-in hybrid sales fell 12 percent and combustion-engine sales fell 6 percent.

Ember’s own framing in its energy-security paper links the ranking to money: countries with larger electric fleets displaced about 200 million barrels of crude between March and August, valued at roughly $20 billion. Euan Graham, Ember’s senior energy analyst, said the countries that invested in electric vehicles before the oil crisis are now better protected. With the tracker refreshed monthly, the next update will show whether the gap between the 6 percent U.S. share and the 49 countries ahead of it narrows or widens.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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