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Electric vehicle capitals of the world: demonstrating the path to electric drive

This assessment identifies and analyzes major cities around the world that have the highest high electric vehicle uptake by new vehicle share and sales in 2015. The analysis also summarizes electric vehicle policy, charging infrastructure, and consumer awareness campaigns that are in place in each market to help develop the electric vehicle market. The analysis is conducted at the metropolitan area level to incorporate surrounding travel activity patterns outside the central urban area. The paper also includes a comparison of vehicle life-cycle emissions data to assess new vehicles carbon emission impact in the leading electric vehicle markets. Based on this analysis, the top markets by electric vehicle share of new passenger vehicles are Oslo (27%), Utrecht (15%), Shanghai (11%), Shenzhen (10%), Amsterdam (10%), and San Jose (9.4%). In terms of total volume, the highest annual sales markets are Shanghai, Los Angeles, and Beijing, which recorded between 18,000 and 42,000 new electric vehicle registrations in 2015. Overall, the 14 electric vehicle capitals presented in this study had from two to above 30 times the global electric vehicle sales rate.