China New Models - June 2017

This month we see two important models landing, both at the crossroads of the main trends today: BEVs & SUVs, with BYD betting on its Song EV300 and SAIC on the Roewe eRX5 BEV. 

On other news, the highly ambitious GAC launched not one, but two new models in June: The GA3 PHEV sedan and the GS4 Crossover PHEV. Oh, and Hawtai launched the EV160 city car. If anyone cares for that...


BYD Song EV300 - Hot on the heels of the PHEV success, BYD launched the BEV version of the Song SUV, with a 48 kWh battery, 300 kms range and 0-100 kms/h in 8.9 secs, thus mimicking the Qin EV300 specs, but on a higher, more practical body. With the PHEV version now selling over 4.000 units/month, the 189 deliveries seem like an underwhelming performance, but i believe in a few months it will be selling at the same pace of the Song PHEV.


SAIC Roewe eRX5 BEV - SAIC's Anti-BYD Song, after launching the PHEV, Roewe now released the BEV version of its RX5 SUV, ready to fight the Song EV300 with an equally impressive 48 kWh battery, so expect it to reach easily the four digit area, another question will be if it can do what has been made to do: Outsell BYD's arch-rival ...

Denmark June 2017

The Light at the end of the tunnel?

The 68 units registered last month were by far the best result of the year, pulling the year tally to 150 units, which is still a 45% drop over the same period last year, leading to a PEV share of only 0,1%,far behind the final shares of previous years, like the 0.6% of 2016, the 2.3% of 2015 and even 2014 was better, with 0.9%...

In fact, we have to go back to the dawn of the Third Age of the Electric Car (2010) to see a lower PEV share in Denmark. Let's hope the second half of 2017 brings better news to this market, now that the local government has realized its mistake and will relaunch an incentives package for plug-ins.

In the middle of this sales mayhem that has been affecting Denmark, only two models stand out, together being responsible for 64% of registrations, with the Renault Zoe winning without a sweat the Best Seller award, with 62 units and 41% share, followed by VW e-Up! (23 sales).

Looking at the remaining models ranking, the Third Place is shared by the Tesla Model S and the Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia(!), with the Japanese van being a popular choice in this market throughout the years, possibly because it is the only 7-seater EV that doesn't cost a pornographic amount of money.  Now imagine if it had a decent range...


In the Manufacturers ranking, Renault is the Best Seller (41%), with Volkswagen in Second Place (25%), while Nissan (10%) and Tesla (9%) run for the Third Spot.

Finally a mention to Fuel Cells, there were 9 FCEV's registered in the first half of 2017, being exacly the same number of units sold in the previous year (Apparently PEV buyers didn't changed to FCEVs with the end of plug-in incentives), with the recently arrived Honda Clarity FCEV leading the tally, with 7 registrations, followed by the soon-to-be-departed Hyundai ix35 FCEV and the divisive Toyota Mirai, both with one registration.

Pl	Denmark	June	YTD	%	'16Pl
1	Renault Zoe	48	62	41	1
2 3	Volkswagen e-Up! Tesla Model S	5 5	35 9	23 6	6 5
3 5 6	Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia Nissan Leaf BMW i3	1 4 2	9 6 5	6 4 3	7 4 2
6	Tesla Model X	2	5	3	3
8	Volkswagen e-Golf		3	2	14
9	Mercedes GLC350e		2	1	9
9 9 9 9 9	BMW 225xe Active Tourer Volvo XC90 T8 Volkswagen Passat GTE Kia Soul EV Mercedes E350e		2 2 2 2 2	1 1 1 1 1	17 11 12 13 N/A
15	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV		1	1	10
15 15 15	BMW i8 Hyundai Ioniq Electric Kia Optima PHEV		1 1 1	1 1 1	20 N/A N/A
	TOTAL	68	150	100

Source: www.bilimp.dk

Italy June 2017

Panamera PHEV lands in Record Month 

The Italian PEV market seems to have waken up for good and is looking to recover the lost time, in June sales surged 248%, to a record 595 units, pulling the YTD tally to 2.266 units (+56% YoY).

While growth is always good, especially in a stagnant market like this one, it is sad to see that this previously BEV-predominant market now has PHEVs earning more and more share (58%) of PEV sales.

Looking at the models ranking, the top positions are not that different from last month, with the podium remaining the same, but the Top 10 has seen some changes, with the hot selling Mini Countryman PHEV (52 units, #2 in June) climbing to #7, while the BMW 330e (46 units, best result in 13 months) climbed three positions to #9 and the VW Golf GTE (59 units, #1 in June and best result in over two years) jumped ten positions(!) to Tenth.

But the real news in June was the thundering arrival of the Porsche Panamera PHEV, with a record 40 units in its debut month, allowing it to jump immediately to #15, this performance is even more impressive when we consider that this is a six-figure priced car...

Looking at the manufacturers ranking, BMW is in the lead, with 36% share, followed by Nissan (19%), and Mercedes (16%). 

With Mini already with 7% share, the BMW Group is likely to have over 50% share in this market soon.

Pl	Italy	June	YTD	%	'16Pl
1	Nissan Leaf	51	288	18	1
2 3 4 5	BMW 225xe Active Tourer  Mercedes GLC350e  BMW i3  Renault Zoe	41 41 30 37	237 206 181 180	15 13 11 11	2 25 5 6
6 7 8	Tesla Model S Mini Countryman PHEV  Tesla Model X	26 52 29	146 119 98	9 7 6	4 N/A 26
9	BMW 330e	46	86	5	9
10 11 12	Volkswagen Golf GTE Audi A3 e-Tron Citröen C-Zero	59 16 4	76 65 62	5 4 4	7 19 8
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23	Volvo XC90 T8 Volvo V60 Plug-In Porsche Panamera PHEV BMW 740e Audi Q7 e-Tron BMW X5 40e Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Toyota Prius PHEV Kia Optima PHEV Volkswagen e-Up! Citroen E-Mehari	16 1 40 8 5 4 4 21 8 1 2	53 46 40 37 36 34 28 24 23 22 20	3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1	12 20 31 21 24 13 10 N/A 30 18 33
24	Mercedes B250e	8	19	1	11
25 26 27	Porsche Cayenne Plug-in BMW 530e Mercedes C350e	4 9 2	18 17 15	1 1 1	20 N/A 36
27	Volkswagen Passat GTE	5	15	1	14
29 30	Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia  Mercedes E350e Others	2 1 21	12 11 39	1 1 2	17 N/A
	TOTAL	595	2.266	100

Source: greenstart.it; unrae.it

Which is the best City EV?

After the success of this post, i decided to compare the current crop of city BEVs in Portugal and see which would the best:


Range



BMW i3 - 4

Kia Soul EV - 3

Mitsubishi I-Miev - 2

Renault Zoe - 5 (300 kms real world range, 43 kW AC charging available)

Smart Forfour ED - 1

Volkswagen e-Up! - 2

Opel Ampera-e (Chevy Bolt) - 6


Space



BMW i3 - 3

Kia Soul EV- 4

Mitsubishi I-Miev - 1

Renault Zoe - 5 (Five usable seats, 338 liters in the trunk)

Smart Forfour ED - 2

Volkswagen e-Up! - 2

Opel Ampera-e (Chevy Bolt) - 6


Reliability / Running costs


BMW i3 - 3

Kia Soul EV - 5 (7 year warranty, reliable battery)

Mitsubishi I-Miev - 1

Renault Zoe - 4

Smart Forfour ED - 1

Volkswagen e-Up! - 2

Opel Ampera-e (Chevy Bolt) - 3


Manoeuvrability / Dynamics

BMW i3 - 5 (Unbeatable Dynamics, near perfect manoeuvrability)

Kia Soul EV - 1

Mitsubishi I-Miev - 4

Renault Zoe - 2

Smart Forfour ED - 4

Volkswagen e-Up! - 4

Opel Ampera-e (Chevy Bolt) - 3



Price


BMW i3 - 1

Kia Soul EV - 4

Mitsubishi I-Miev - 7

Renault Zoe - 4

Smart ForFour ED - 8 (At circa 24.000 eur, it is 18.000 eur cheaper than the BMW i3...)

Volkswagen e-Up! - 6

Opel Ampera-e (Chevy Bolt) - 2

Total

BMW i3 - 16 (Good range, stellar Dynamics, too bad about the price...)

Kia Soul EV - 17 (A balanced car, but there are more suited models for city driving) 

Mitsubishi I-Miev - 15 (Great price and manoeuvrability, but the world has moved on when it comes to the rest...)

Renault Zoe - 20 (Spacious city car with unbeatable range, which compensates some shortcomings in the manoeuvrability side)

Smart Forfour ED - 16 (Great price and fit for the city, but needs better range and increased charging speed)

Volkswagen e-Up! - 16 (Typical Volkswagen personality traits: Not bad at anything, not especially good in any item and slightly overpriced for what it is)

Opel Ampera-e (Chevy Bolt) - 20 (Awesome range, unbeatable interior, but at an estimated 39k eur, it is playing in a different, higher class)

South Korea June 2017 (Draft)

IONIQ and the rest 

After a long absence, the South Korean market is back to EV Sales, the headlining news is the disruptive effect that the arrival of the Hyundai Ioniq Electric, is having, pulling this year market share to a record 0.63%, up from 0.38% in the previous year and only 0.17% in 2015.

With the aforementioned Hyundai still production constrained (Not enough batteries from LG Chem), but with the perspective of more batteries available this year, registrations can only go up, so we can even see the market reach 1% share later in the year.

The following models are miles behind, but are also seeing their sales increase, with the Kia Soul EV managing to keep the Samsung SM3 ZE (Refresh needed?) behind it.

An intriguing addition to the market is the arrival of the Chevrolet Bolt, considering the 2017 production is already sold out, and there is still has a 2.000 orders waiting list to fill, it will be interesting to see if Chevrolet puts a real effort in the second half of 2017 and delivers its BEV model in enough volumes to allow the nameplate registrations to take off.

By the way, Chevrolet: Canada and Europe are in the same situation, how about relocating Bolt/Ampera-e production away from the USA and into markets where the Bolt actually makes sense? Unless this is all part of the "No one wants EV's" narrative...

Pl	Model	Jan-Jun 2017
1	Hyundai Ioniq Electric	3.010
2	Kia Soul EV	655
3 4 5	Renault Samsung SM3 ZE Chevrolet Bolt Renault Samsung Twizy Others	404 251 106 513
	TOTAL	4.939