Investors may want to use any signs of weakness in the EV market as opportunity.
For one, demand is accelerating.
According to the International Energy Agency, about a fifth of all cars will be electric this year. Sales are expected to grow by 35% globally to 14 million this year.
In the U.S. alone, total auto sales fell 8% year over year, according to Cox Automotive, as noted by Electrek.co. Meanwhile, EV sales were up 65%, surpassing 800,000 in volume for the first time. Then in the first quarter of 2023, EV sales broke another record, passing 250,000, and claiming more than 7% of total U.S. auto sales.
Not only will that have a positive impact on electric vehicle stocks, like Tesla and Nio, it could have a substantial impact on EV metal stocks, too. That includes major lithium stocks like Albemarle and Lithium Americas. It’ll also impact other EV supplying stocks, as well.
Now, we’re learning that EV sales jumped to more than 10 million in 2022, with China accounting for about 60% of the sales. All as global leaders race to put millions of EVs on the roads to battle climate change issues.
“Electric car sales — including battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) — exceeded 10 million last year, up 55% relative to 2021,” according to the IEA, as noted by CNBC. “This figure — 10 million EV sales worldwide — exceeds the total number of cars sold across the entire European Union (about 9.5 million vehicles) and is nearly half of the total number of cars sold in China in 2022.”
The agency sees 14 million EVs on the road this year.
“Electric vehicles are one of the driving forces in the new global energy economy that is rapidly emerging – and they are bringing about a historic transformation of the car manufacturing industry worldwide,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, added.