Moderators should fix the title and add "in 2018" to the end, as it's on the chart itself. Omitting "in 2018" part changes message completely and is misleading.
It would be misleading if sales peaked in 2018, then fell, and have subsequently surpassed the 2018 peak. That's not what happened though. And reporting "sales have peaked" 6 years after the peak is reasonable - doing so 2 years after the peak would be premature.
I still support adding it to the title, because it's even more impressive.
The timeframe is even more important due to the macro environment of the past six years - one might have credibly suggested 2019 was a fluke and that 2020-2021 was obviously a major outlier on many fronts, but the trend keeps going into the latest years they have data for, which combined with the increase in EV sales makes 2018 as Peak Internal Combustion pretty much irrefutable from the vantage point of early 2025.
How is it misleading? It would be impossible for someone to credibly claim something peaked in 2024, for example. So it must be some time in the past (and 2018 is not very long ago).
It just reads as present tense. Your point is valid. However, there are going to be how many eye balls that don’t read past the headline and don’t think deeply on it, but now have the impressions that they are currently at a peak
