Germany January 2013

Dashboard from Opel Ampera, the slightly fancier Volt's brother

Waiting For Godot Edition

It looks that the german plug-in cars being previewed on the next Geneva Auto Show are originating a wait-and-see attitude on german consumers, January marked the fourth consecutive down month, with the Teutonic EV market shrinking to just 125 units sold on the first month of the year, down from the 356 sold last October.

The model with the worst hit was the Renault Twizy, with 37 sales, down from 63 in December or 132 in November. Maybe when spring arrives its sales start to defrost...

The Opel Ampera took the Twizy misfortunes to achieve the first place, something it failed to do since the arrival of the french quadricycle. Rounding up the podium was the Nissan Leaf, an habitué here who was also far away from its best performance (96 cars last October).

These negative numbers are expected to continue for a few more months, at least until VW and the rest of the gang start to sell their EV's. And don't forget that Tesla has Germany as a priority target, it will be interesting to see how the start-up behaves at the home of the Three Mary's(1) in the land of Autobahns...

Pl	Germany	Jan	YTD	%	'12 Pl
1	Opel Ampera	44	44	35	2
2	Renault Twizy	37	37	30	1
3	Nissan Leaf	24	24	19	5
4	Peugeot iOn	9	9	7	7
5	Citröen C-Zero	6	6	5	4
6	Mitsubishi I-Miev	5	5	4	8
	TOTAL	125	125	100

(1) - Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz

Source: KBA