The IEA's Global Electric Vehicle Outlook 2022 stated that plug-in EV sales, which include both battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, doubled in 2021, reaching 6.6 million units sold.

According to Charged EVs, demand is even stronger in 2022, in spite of supply chain issues, and the agency also notes that there were some 16.5 million plug-ins on Earth's roads in 2021, triple of 2018.

China remains the EV world leader, registering triple annual sales in 2021 of 3.3 million. Europe saw an important increase in sales as well, growing by 65% to 2.3 million vehicles.

The diversity of plug-in vehicles continues to increase as well, as there were about five times as many options in 2021 compared to 2015. The total number of plug-in models available at the end of 2021 was 450.

As the current offer of plug-in electric vehicles is very diverse, choosing the best electric car can be complicated, but our top regarding the best battery electric vehicles to buy in Romania can make the choice a little easier.

There are some important obstacles to note, however, when it comes to the production of EVs, one of them being the increase in prices for materials such as lithium, which jumped in price by seven times since the beginning of 2021, with cobalt and nickel also seeing an increase.

IEA officials say that "in the short term, the greatest obstacles to continued strong EV sales are soaring prices for some critical minerals essential for battery manufacturing, as well as supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s attack on Ukraine and by continued COVID-19 lockdowns in some parts of China. In the longer term, greater efforts are needed to roll out enough charging infrastructure to service the expected growth in electric car sales."