China sales numbers are in: EVs up while everything with an engine collapses

New sales figures out of China show a clear split: battery-electric cars keep growing while every type of vehicle with a gas engine is falling fast. In July, fully electric car sales rose 6% from a year earlier, while plain gas car sales dropped 44%. Plug-in hybrids and range-extended electric vehicles (cars with a battery and motor plus a small gas engine that helps power them) also fell, dragging down the combined total for all plug-in vehicles even though pure electric cars alone are doing well. Gas-only cars now make up a shrinking share of a shrinking market, while electric cars set a record 65% share of retail sales in China.

The bigger picture: as gas and oil prices have swung higher this year, more buyers in China and elsewhere are choosing electric cars instead. China's electric vehicle exports jumped nearly 148% in July compared with the year before, meaning more of these cars are headed to other countries, adding to a broader global rise in electric vehicle sales.

For a homeowner, none of this changes anything directly about your house today, but it's a sign of where car buying is heading. If you're weighing whether to add an electric vehicle charger at home or pair one with rooftop solar down the road, this trend suggests electric vehicles are becoming a bigger part of the market, not a smaller one, and battery costs and charging options are likely to keep improving as scale increases.