Electric car sales more than doubled from January through October of this year compared with a year earlier, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported Sunday.

Namely, 314 electric cars have been sold in Turkey in the first 10 months of 2020, a 105% year-on-year increase, while 15,151 hybrid cars have been sold, indicating another increase of close to 74%.

Even though the trend is upward in electric car sales, the market share in the Turkish automotive industry remains low.

The agency cited information gathered from data published by Automotive Distributors’ Association (ODD): Gasoline cars took the lead in 2020 in car sales with nearly 52% followed by diesel cars with 41% and liquified petroleum gas (LPG) cars with 4%.

The sales of gasoline cars rose by 139% compared with 2019 while LPG cars sold 63% more in 2020. Sales of diesel cars also rose by 29%.

Sales of 1600cc cars also recorded a prominent increase with 72%.

The 1600cc cars took the lead in market share by a whopping 95% while 1600cc to 2000cc cars stood at 1.8% and cars over 2000cc stood at 0.2%.

Amid a steady increase in the number of electric and hybrid cars registered across Europe and other parts of the world, Turkey has also been enjoying a noteworthy rise due to increasing environmental awareness and models available in the market.

The number of electric or hybrid cars in the country tripled in 2019 compared with a year earlier and reached 15,053, up from 5,367.

The number of registered electric and hybrid vehicles was only 47 in 2011. It surged by 385.1% in 2012 to 228 and by 91.2% to 436 in 2013. The same figure stood at 525 in 2014 and 889 in 2015, while it reached the threshold of 1,000 in 2016.

Electric and hybrid cars registered in the traffic hit 1,685 in 2017, before skyrocketing to 5,367 in 2018 and finally 15,053 as of the end of last year. They have increased by approximately 16-fold in the past five years.

Turkey is one of the countries that has prioritized this trend and looks to further boost the sales of hybrid and electric automobiles. It is focusing on developing and using low-consumption and environmentally friendly automobile technologies.

The country in December 2019 unveiled its first indigenous and all-electric automobile prototype.

Automobile Joint Venture Group (TOGG), a consortium that is building the car, will produce five different models – an SUV, sedan, C-hatchback, B-SUV and B-MPV – by 2030 and own the intellectual and industrial property rights to each. Mass production of the SUV will begin in 2022, with the sedan to follow.

Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez earlier said that over 1 million electric vehicles are anticipated to be on Turkey's roads by 2030.

Dönmez also said the energy ministry is now planning to assess the impact of 1 million charge points on the country's electricity distribution network.