Europe is way ahead of U.S. when it comes to electric vehicles

Europe can’t get enough electric vehicles. 

In the region so far this year, 195,000 electric vehicles were sold — up 42 percent from this period last year, according to a report from Swedish industry consulting group EV-Volumes. 

That’s more than the U.S., which saw 122,000 electric vehicles sold in the first six months of 2018. Norway leads Europe with the most electric vehicle sales: 36,500 for the first half of 2018 already. But Germany is expected to take the lead by the end of the year.

As reported this weekend, all of those sales helped Europe hit an important milestone: it now has 1 million electric vehicles — ahead of the U.S., which has about 750,000 battery-powered cars. China hit 1 million EVs last year.

Scotland in particular is going all in on electric. To kick off an electric conversion for the Royal Mail service, Scottish postal workers have started using six electric vans in Edinburgh. Eventually 100 Peugeot plug-in vans will replace older traditional gas delivery vehicles, according to the Scotsman. Eventually the mail system will go electric nationwide.

The vehicles can be recharged at a mail office location and will take about 30 minutes to reach 80 percent full with a fast charge. 

The UK has a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Throughout the UK, there were more than 30,000 electric vehicles sold in the first half of 2018.