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EV battery deployment reached 1.2 TWh in 2025, up almost 30%: the IEA's regional figures at a glance
The International Energy Agency's Global EV Outlook 2026 puts electric vehicle battery deployment at 1.2 TWh in 2025, an increase of almost 30% on 2024. The chapter names regional shares — China 60% of the global total, the European Union almost 15%, the United States 10% and stagnant, and emerging markets and developing economies 6% — and documents the fastest growth in electric trucks, where battery demand more than doubled on sharp sales growth in China. It also records average battery sizes by market: European Union battery electric cars close to 70 kWh, China below 60 kWh and the United States 90 kWh.
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Global electric vehicle battery deployment reached 1.2 TWh in 2025, according to the battery chapter of the International Energy Agency's Global EV Outlook 2026, an increase of almost 30% compared to 2024 and more than 7 times greater than in 2020. Electric vehicles remained the largest source of battery deployment overall, accounting for more than 70% of the global total in 2025, down slightly from almost 80% in 2024, with stationary storage and other uses taking up the difference.
The growth was not evenly spread. The chapter's regional breakdown puts China at 60% of global EV battery deployment in 2025 and the European Union at almost 15%, while deployment stagnated in the United States at 10%. Emerging markets and developing economies outside China accounted for 6%, which the IEA reads as road transport electrification becoming increasingly global. Within the EV total, light-duty vehicles remained the dominant segment at more than 85% of 2025 deployment.
Electric trucks drove the fastest growth
The fastest-growing segment was electric trucks: battery demand for them more than doubled in 2025, which the chapter attributes largely to a sharp acceleration in sales in China. That lifted trucks' share of global EV battery deployment to about 8% in 2025, up from less than 5% in 2024. The report's executive summary records that electric truck sales more than doubled worldwide, reaching 9% of all truck sales, and that in China one in four trucks sold was electric, with sales doubling there for the second consecutive year.
Average battery sizes differ sharply by market
The chapter also documents how big the batteries going into cars are, and the averages differ by market. In 2025, the average size of battery electric car packs was close to 70 kWh in the European Union and below 60 kWh in China, remaining broadly stable in both. In the United States, average battery sizes for battery electric and plug-in hybrid cars grew at a similar pace of around 5%, reaching 90 kWh for battery electric cars and less than 20 kWh for plug-in hybrids.
Plug-in hybrid packs are getting bigger in China and the European Union. Average plug-in hybrid battery sizes rose by almost 10% in China, reaching more than 25 kWh, and by almost 15% in the European Union, reaching just over 20 kWh. So a smaller average pack in China sits alongside growing PHEV capacity there — two different signals from the same chapter, both dated 2025.
Who makes the cells
Upstream, production is concentrated. China, Europe and North America together accounted for about 95% of global battery output between 2023 and 2025, with China the largest producer at over 80% of the total in 2025. The executive summary adds that nearly all battery cells used worldwide are supplied by companies headquartered in China, Korea or Japan, and that the share of Chinese producers in global electric car battery deployment reached almost 75% in 2025, growing especially fast in the European Union, where it has almost doubled since 2023.
Chemistry is part of the picture too. The chapter notes that lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries can reduce EV production costs, but their deployment remains mainly concentrated in China, where Chinese companies lead in LFP battery and materials production. In the European Union, LFP accounted for more than 10% of EV battery demand in 2025. The chapter also flags that it will take time for solid-state batteries to make a dent in the EV mass market, with them expected to remain limited to premium segments until the first half of the 2030s.
The outlook to 2035
On the IEA's projections, EV battery deployment is expected to reach almost 3 TWh by 2030 in both the Current Policies Scenario (CPS) and the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), up from around 1.2 TWh in 2025, and to rise further to around 4 TWh by 2035 in the CPS. These are scenario projections based on stated policies, not certainties; they are the IEA's published estimates and depend on how sales, policy and supply chains actually develop.
- The regional shares are for EV battery deployment in 2025: China 60% of the global total, the European Union almost 15%, the United States 10%, EMDEs outside China 6%.
To check any of these figures yourself, the Global EV Outlook 2026 is published by the IEA in Paris under a CC BY 4.0 licence, with the battery chapter and executive summary both freely accessible on the IEA's website. The battery chapter's footnotes state the underlying data sources — the IEA's analysis draws on data from EV Volumes and the China Automotive Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, among others listed — so the regional shares and battery sizes can be traced to the chapter's stated methodology. If the IEA revises or replaces its data after this material was prepared, the current versions of those pages are the reference that carries.