Sales of fully electric vehicles in South Africa dipped 16.4% year on year in Q1 2025, though total new-energy vehicle registrations climbed thanks to increased hybrid sales…
Naamsa has released official sales figures for new-energy vehicles (NEVs) – that is, fully electric vehicles (EVs), traditional hybrids (HEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) – in South Africa for Q1 2025. And the big news is that local EV registrations declined 16.4% year on year.
But before we dive into the details, let’s take a quick step back and consider how the overall market performed in the opening quarter of 2025. Based on figures reported to the industry representative body, SA’s total new-vehicle market registered year-on-year growth of 10.5% in Q1 2025, ending this reporting period on 144 426 units.
Meanwhile, NEV sales for the opening 3 months of the year came in at 3 487 units, up 14.0% compared with Q1 2024. By our maths, that figure represents approximately 2.4% of the total new-vehicle market. For the record, NEVs comprised 3.0% of Mzansi’s total new-vehicle sales in 2024, up from 1.47% in 2023.
The slowdown in NEV growth locally in Q1 2025 is thanks to the sales performance of purely battery-powered vehicles, with Naamsa’s figures showing that EV sales dipped 16.4% year on year to 276 units (or 0.19% of the total market). Take note, however, this figure excludes local sales from BYD, which unfortunately doesn’t yet report registrations to the industry representative body.
What about plug-in hybrids? Well, Naamsa’s figures show that local PHEV sales increased 70.9% year on year to 241 units in Q1 2025. As such, the PHEV segment already looks well positioned to exceed 2024’s record of 728 units (which itself was more than double 2023’s tally of 336 units) before the end of 2025.
Finally, traditional hybrids again accounted for the overwhelming majority of NEV registrations, thanks largely to sales of dual-powered versions of the Prospecton-built Corolla Cross. In Q1 2025, HEV sales in South Africa grew 14.8% year on year to 2 970 units, representing a whopping 85.2% of the NEV total.
As a reminder, 2024’s 15 611-unit performance (up 100.6%, year on year) was a record for NEV sales in South Africa. It followed this segment of the local market enjoying significant year-on-year gains of 421.7% (to 4 674 units) in 2022 and 65.7% (to 7 746 units) in 2023.
