A huge sales surge of more than 40% in the first six months of 2018 has seen registrations of electric vehicles in Europe pass the one million mark.

The EU, along with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland has hit the landmark following a 42% increase on the same period last year from January to to June.

The analysis from EV-Volumes suggests that total sales could reach 1.35m by the end of the year, though that is still some way behind global leaders China, who had already reached 1m EVs sold this time last year.

Europe’s leaders in electric vehicle sales remains Norway, where government incentives has led to a healthy 36,500 of sales and an impressive 37% of new registrations. Germany is hot on the heels of the Scandanavian country though and analysts predict the Germans will be the leading EV country soon.

“A stock of one million electric vehicles is an important milestone on the road to electrification and meeting emission targets but it is of course not enough,” said EV-Volumes analyst Viktor Irle.

The Nissan Leaf EV remains Europe’s most popular electric vehicle with sales of 18,080 in the first half of 2018. The Renault Zoe and BMW i3 make up the remainder of the top three, with the VW e-Golf and Tesla Model S the only other full electric cars in the top 10.

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