# Plug-ins took 25% of global car sales in 2025, up from 0.7% in 2015

> IEA data shows how fast plug-ins grew, and why 'gas cars under 50%' is a narrower claim than it sounds.

Tec N Trend data brief · 2026-10-07 · https://tecntrend.com/briefs/2026-10-07/gas-cars-50

Electrek reports that gasoline-only cars made up 49% of global new-vehicle sales in the first half of 2026, down from 73% in 2021, citing Mobility Global data first reported by Nikkei. The same report says battery-electric cars took 17% and conventional hybrids 18%.

The IEA series covers a different slice: plug-in cars. Battery-electric share rose from about 0.4% in 2015 to 16.5% in 2025, and plug-in hybrids from 0.2% to 8.5%. Together that is 25% of roughly 85 million cars, so about 75% of 2025 sales were still gasoline, diesel or non-plug hybrids.

Watch the hybrids. Gasoline-only can drop below half while most of the replacement cars still burn fuel. The IEA plug-in line and the Mobility Global gasoline-only line measure different things, so they should not be subtracted from each other.

## Key numbers
- Battery-electric share, 2025 (IEA): 16.5%
- Plug-in hybrid share, 2025 (IEA): 8.5%
- Plug-ins total, 2015: 0.7%
- Gasoline-only, H1 2026 (Mobility Global via Electrek): 49%, down from 73% in 2021

## Chart: Global new-car sales by powertrain, 2015–2025
Data: https://tecntrend.com/briefs/2026-10-07/gas-cars-50.json

## Sources
- [IEA Global EV Data Explorer (API: EV sales, EV sales share, World, Cars)](https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/global-ev-data-explorer) (CC BY 4.0 (IEA), captured 2026-10-07)
- [Our World in Data, Share of new cars that are electric (IEA mirror, cross-check)](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electric-car-sales-share) (CC BY 4.0, captured 2026-10-07)
- [Electrek (Mobility Global / Nikkei figures, news only)](https://electrek.co/2026/10/05/gas-cars-fall-below-50-percent-global-new-car-sales/) (news report, figures quoted not reproduced, captured 2026-10-07)
- News: [Gas cars fall below 50% of global new car sales for the first time](https://electrek.co/2026/10/05/gas-cars-fall-below-50-percent-global-new-car-sales/) (Electrek, 2026-10-05)

## Caveats
- The 'gas cars below 50%' figure is Mobility Global's gasoline-only share (49% in H1 2026). It excludes conventional hybrids (18%), diesel and plug-in hybrids. That series is proprietary and could not be charted; no open dataset gives gasoline-only share by year.
- The chart shows IEA plug-in shares (BEV + PHEV) through 2025; it has no 2026 data and no split of conventional hybrids. The grey band is everything that is not a plug-in, so it includes hybrids.
- Totals are rounded to two significant figures in the IEA API, so BEV and PHEV splits (computed as EV share x BEV or PHEV share of EV sales) carry roughly 1 point of rounding error. Fuel-cell cars (a few thousand a year) fall in the plug-in total.
- IEA covers passenger cars; Mobility Global covers new light vehicles, which may include light commercial vehicles. Do not combine the two series.