The International Energy Agency says global sales of new electric and plug-in hybrid cars more-than doubled last year.

However, sales in Japan lagged way behind those in China, the United States and some European countries.

A report released by the organization this month says about 6.6 million EVs and plug-in hybrids were sold worldwide in 2021.

That is 2.2 times more than that in the previous year, and accounted for about 9 percent of all new vehicles sold.

Sales in China nearly tripled to 3.33 million vehicles, while in the US, they more than doubled to 630,000.

European markets also saw big increases, with sales in Germany growing 1.7 times to 680,000. In Britain, they rose 1.8 times to 310,000; while in France sales were up 1.7 times to 300,000.

Japan's EV sales increased 1.5 times, but still only to 44,000 units.

The IEA says many countries have plans to gradually reduce or eventually ban sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles. It says subsidy programs for EVs were also expanded and those factors contributed to strong sales around the world.

A Japanese expert says consumers feel comfortable buying an EV as they are confident they will get fair value when they want to sell it.

Fukao Sanshiro, Senior Research Fellow at Itochu Research Institute says "The trade-in prices of used EVs are actually increasing in many countries as their driving range doesn't fall off and the batteries are still going strong.

Fukao says the secondhand EV market in Japan is not as strong. He says it is crucial for that to grow to help EVs become more popular.