Friday, February 22, 2013

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

2 comments:

  1. Tesla will not triumph in Germany, I do not see the germans to exchange their 5 Series or Merc CLS for a new american brand powered by electricity. It would be better for them to invest more in China or Australia.

    Jon

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  2. I also think that it will be hard for them to get significant numbers in Germany, but the countries you've given wouldn't be the ones i'd bet, for me they would be better off investing in Sweden and Norway

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