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Trade data reveal changing patterns in electric vehicles market

Blog post Published on 14/05/2024
Eric Ng Shing and Roy Santana

Electric vehicles (EVs) are radically transforming the transport sector, redefining the automotive market, and reshaping global trade in transport equipment. By the end of 2023, EVs accounted for more than a third of all car imports in value terms.
Trade data reveal changing patterns in electric vehicles market
 Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in sales of various types of EVs — including hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and battery electric vehicles (BEV), but they were not separately considered in the trade statistics. As a result, in 2017 the World Customs Organization implemented an amendment to the classification public.em for traded goods — the Harmonized public.em (HS) introduced new categories to differentiate between traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and their electrified alternatives. 
 
Prior to this, the HS classified passenger vehicles by the number of passengers they could carry and the type and size of their internal combustion engine.(1)

The classification of hybrids and plug-in hybrids was not straightforward due to the fact that they are a combination of an internal combustion engine and an electric motor used for propulsion. The exact classification could depend on the primary source of power for the vehicle and specific features. In some economies, certain cars were classified together with traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, making it impossible to derive internationally comparable statistics.

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