Gas-only cars fell to 49% of global new-car sales in the first half of 2026 for the first time

Gasoline-only vehicles made up 49% of global new-vehicle sales in the first half of 2026, down from 52% a year earlier and 73% in 2021. In volume, that was 20.25 million cars, a 10% drop, according to data from the automotive research firm Mobility Global.

The figures were first reported by Nikkei, and they put gas-only models below half of the worldwide market for the first time on record. Hybrids and battery-electric cars filled the space, but not in the proportions many expected.

Mobility Global’s First-Half Ledger

Mobility Global, the data firm formerly known as S&P Global Mobility and spun off from S&P Global this year, counted 49% gasoline-only, 18% hybrid and 17% battery-electric among new vehicles sold in January through June. Electrek’s account of the Nikkei report puts hybrids at 7.27 million units, up 10%, and battery-electric vehicles at 6.87 million, up 12%. Diesel, plug-in hybrids and other powertrains make up the remaining 16% or so, a residual Electrek calculated itself because the source did not break it out.

The phrase “first time on record” belongs to the reporting, not to a separate dataset: Electrek writes that it is the first time on record gas-only models have been under half, and Gulf News repeats the framing for pure internal-combustion models. The comparison it rests on is a half-year share, so a full 2026 reading could land elsewhere. Working backward from the published units, 20.25 million gas-only sales at a 49% share implies a market of roughly 41 million new vehicles in the six months, an estimate derived here rather than a figure Mobility Global published.

Hybrids Outsell Battery Cars by 400,000

The gap between hybrids and battery-electric vehicles is narrow. Hybrids sold about 400,000 more units than battery-electric cars in the half, 7.27 million against 6.87 million, and about 83% of new vehicles sold worldwide still carried an engine of some kind, a figure Electrek derived by subtracting the 17% battery-electric share from the total. The shift away from gasoline-only cars, in other words, has so far run as much through hybrid powertrains as through plugs.

China, Europe and North America Diverge

The regional data pulls in different directions. Gas-only sales fell 26% in China and 13% in Europe, and in the European Union battery-electric registrations overtook petrol cars through August, 1,641,333 against 1,634,733, according to the European manufacturers’ association figures that Gulf News cited. Battery-electric sales rose 32% in Europe to 1.81 million, climbed 81% in Southeast Asia to 350,000 and more than doubled in Oceania to 110,000, but fell 3% in China to 3.44 million and 15% in North America.

The North American slide has a U.S. counterpart. Cox Automotive’s second-quarter report put U.S. electric vehicle sales at about 247,226, up 14.7% from the revised first quarter but down 20.5% from a year earlier, the third straight quarterly decline. EVs took roughly 5.8% of U.S. new-vehicle sales, against a record 10.6% in the third quarter of 2025. Tesla still accounts for roughly half of U.S. EV sales, Cox reports, with Chevrolet second, followed by Hyundai and Cadillac. Stephanie Valdez Streaty, Cox’s director of industry insights, said the next phase of EV growth will likely be driven not only by advances in the technology itself.

Fuel Prices and the Subsidy Question

Nikkei links the shift to fuel prices that spiked with the conflict in the Middle East. The International Energy Agency reached a similar reading in its Global EV Outlook, published May 20, which expected about 23 million electric car sales in 2026, close to 30% of all cars sold, and described countries and consumers responding to an energy crisis. The agency’s announcement of the outlook also noted that global electric car sales fell 8% in the first quarter of 2026 on policy changes in China and the United States, with Europe up close to 30% in the same quarter. The full outlook measured 2025 electric car sales at over 20 million, roughly a quarter of new cars sold worldwide, and found electric cars at 10% or more of sales in around 40 countries. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said electric car sales set new records in close to 100 countries last year.

Yoshiaki Kawano of Mobility Global, quoted in Nikkei’s report as relayed by Electrek, said few EV buyers return to gasoline cars or hybrids, and that demand driven by “genuine consumer needs rather than subsidies” should grow as prices fall. Kawano’s reading is a forecast of buyer behavior, and the first-half numbers do not test it: they record what sold, not whether those buyers stay.

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

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