Global sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles rose by a quarter last year to over 17 million cars, helped by a fourth consecutive month of record sales in December as China continued to grow and Europe stabilized, data showed on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

Incentives and emission targets pushed EV sales in China and aided Britain in overtaking Germany as Europe's biggest battery-electric market in 2024, research firm Rho Motion said.

Electric car makers look into 2025 as a transformative year as China's sales growth slows, new emissions targets are setting off in Europe, and questions surround potential US policy changes under the incoming Trump administration.

Global sales of fully electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids rose 25.6% year-on-year to 1.9 million in December, albeit slowing for a second consecutive month, the Rho Motion data showed.

Sales in China jumped 36.5% to 1.3 million vehicles in December, and totaled 11 million for the whole of 2024.

In the United States and Canada, EV sales rose 8.8% to 0.19 million in December, while Europe reported sales of 0.31 million, up 0.7% from the same month of 2023.

In the rest of the world, December sales rose by 26.4%.

"The removal of subsidies in Germany had a devastating impact on the whole European market, if the US follows suit, we may see the same there," Rho Motion said in a note.

Rho Motion data manager Charles Lester, commenting on November data following European Union's introduction of tariffs at the end of October, told Reuters that there was "no clear downturn in sales" of major Chinese-made EV models.