This happened just three years after the introduction of the Nissan Leaf, the first modern production electric car.
Five countries are responsible for 80 percent of sales so far, the US with 71,000 in round figures followed by Japan (45,000), France (20,000), China (12,000) and the UK (8,000).
And the cost per kWh of batteries has more than halved in the four years to 2012, thanks to almost $9bn in R&D spending by governments worldwide.
The first production electric cars in public transport were on the NYC taxi fleet in 1867. Some 15 years later it was estimated that there were 30,000 electric cars in use across the world, and it was only the arrival of cheap petrol in the 1930s that killed off further development at the time.
Although more electric cars were sold in the US in their first three years than were hybrids in their first three years there, the EV still has a lot of catchup to make. Some 430,000 hybrids were sold in the world's biggest market for them last year, representing 3 percent of the US car market.
(The foregoing is based on information from the US Department of Energy, the International Energy Agency, and Nissan, compiled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)
