Milestone reached nearly a year after China but ahead of the US

There are now more than a million electric cars in Europe after sales soared by more than 40% in the first half of the year, new figures reveal.

Europe hit the milestone nearly a year after China, which has a much larger car market, but ahead of the US, which is expected to reach the landmark later this year driven by the appetite for Tesla’s latest model.

Between January and June around 195,000 plug-in cars were sold across the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, a 42% increase on the same period a year before.

With growth speeding up, the cumulative total is expected to hit 1.35m by the end of the year, according to industry analysts EV-Volumes.

Viktor Irle, a market analyst at the group, said: “A stock of one million electric vehicles is an important milestone on the road to electrification and meeting emission targets but it is of course not enough.”

Read more: The Guardian