Region wise Passenger Cars Forecasts
(Source: OPEC`s World Oil Outlook to 2050)
As per OPEC, new vehicle registrations were placed at 96 million units worldwide in 2024. Around one third of these new vehicles were registered in China, the world’s largest car market, comprising almost 28 million passenger cars and four million commercial vehicles. Moreover, China is also by far the largest market for EVs. Out of around 17 million EVs sold worldwide in 2024, more than 11 million were registered in China
The second largest car market is OECD Americas, led by the US. In the US, new car sales increased to almost 16 million in 2024, representing growth of 2.6% compared to 2023. In contrast to China, however, the US market has a much higher share of larger cars and SUVs and a much lower share of EVs. In fact, new EV sales in the US reached just 1.3 million in 2024, accounting for just 8% of all new registrations
Compared to China and the US, Europe’s car market experienced much slower growth, with new car registrations increasing by just 0.8% to reach close to 11 million. Moreover, sales of EVs declined marginally compared to 2023, falling below three million in 2024
OPEC expects global fleet of passenger cars to expand from around 1.4 billion in 2024 to almost 2.3 billion in 2050, an increase of almost 850 million cars
Most of this growth is forecast to take place in non-OECD regions, with China accounting for more than 210 million cars, followed by India (190 million) and Other Asia (almost 180 million)
The remaining 230 million additional cars are spread across other non-OECD regions, most of them in the Middle East and Africa
