Markets Roundup January 2013

Two minimalistic dashboards: The Mitsu I-Miev...

February is closing to an end, so it's time to make a roundup on the several EV markets around the world:

- Tesla made it to #1 in the USA, promising a hard fight for the gold medal in the coming months, just like Volvo did in Sweden;

- Speaking of Sweden, the three countries with highest EV share were Norway (3,00%), Sweden (1,14%) and...Iceland, that's right, the icy island started late on the whole EV thing (it only started to buy electric cars last year), but at 1,57% share in January it's catching up quickly, being this month the second most EV enthusiastic market, headlining what it was generally a good month for electric cars in Nordic countries;

- On the other hand, the rest of european markets suffered with the economic crisis, with the german plug-in market shrinking to just 125 units, far below than the usual 400 units sold last year, and falling behind China (#6) and Sweden (#7) in the countries ranking.

- One vehicle losing ground with the euro crisis is the Renault Twizy, losing the #1 sceptre in Germany, Switzerland and Italy;

- Preparing itself to be made in Europe (UK) and North America (USA), joining the Japanese production, the Nissan Leaf is going to have a lot of installed capacity, let's see if  the price drop justifies demand for all that extra capacity, for now, in January the only bright spot for Nissan's electric car was the 100% monthly increase in Norway, enough to get another #9 spot in the overall Norwegian ranking after achieving it for the first time in October and the second best month ever at 265 cars sold, just 12 units behind the record established three months ago;

...And the Renault Twizy.