World Top 10 April 2013

Two very different approaches to the electric car in the two top spots

Revenge of the Pure Electric Car 


Models

April confirmed that pure electrics are on the rebound, with Tesla's Model S removing the Chevrolet Volt from the second place YTD and BEV share increasing to 61% of the market, up 3% from last month.

The rest of the chart is stable, the Renault Zoe exchanged positions with the Mitsu I-Miev family and the tenth place now belongs to the Chery QQ3 EV, highlighting the significance of the chinese market on the world stage.

Pl	Models	YTD
1	Nissan Leaf	12.289
2	Tesla Model S	7.097
3	Chevrolet Volt (1)	6.760
4	Toyota Prius PHEV	5.401
5	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	4.304
6	Renault Zoe	2.481
7	Mitsubishi I-Miev (2)	2.462
8	Renault Kangoo ZE	2.110
9	Ford C-Max Energi	1.577
10	Chery QQ3 EV (e)	1.050

Manufacturers

In the Manufacturers ranking, Nissan is number one with 24% share, up 4% from last month, followed by Mitsubishi at 15% share, which was been hampered by batteries issues.

Tesla is now #3, leaving Chevrolet in fourth and in the line of fire of Renault, already #4 in April and looking to reduce distances from the american brand.

Toyota was surpassed this month by Renault and has to watch his back, because Ford is coming strong and if the Fusion continues to grow its sales, we might see Ford in #6 before the end of the year.

Behind these major players, figures become a bit sketchy as one doesn't know for sure how the chinese brands are behaving, but taking in account confirmed numbers, Chery is #8, BYD is stable in #9, Smart is benefiting from placing the Fortwo ED in the production line to climb to tenth place.

Pl	Brands	YTD
1	Nissan	12.289
2	Mitsubishi	7.485
3	Tesla	7.107
4	Chevrolet	6.760
5	Renault	6.119
6	Toyota	5.713
7	Ford	2.922
8	Chery (e)	1.050
9	BYD	934
10	Smart	531

(1) - Includes Holden Volt, Opel and Vauxhall Ampera;
(2) - Includes Citröen C-Zero and Peugeot iOn.
(e) - Estimate


Categories

Dividing the plug-in sales by the conventional segments used for gas cars, it is possible to see how each segment leader stands in the global EV chart:

A (City Cars) - Mitsubishi I-Miev (#7)

B (Superminis) - Renault Zoe (#6)

C (Compact) - Nissan Leaf (#1)

D (Midsize) - Ford Fusion Energi (#11)

E/F (Full-size) - Tesla Model S (#2)

SUV - Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-In (#5)

MPV - Ford C-Max Energi (#9)

LCV - Renault Kangoo ZE (#8)

Sports Cars -  Tesla Roadster (#29)

Besides the outstanding (#2) global position of the E/F leader, there's also something to be said about the poor result of the D-segment leader, only eleventh, although it could climb a few positions in the near future.

The same can't be said about the poor result (#29) of the Sports Cars leader, the Tesla Roadster, which is already out of production and should be replaced in the #1 spot by one of two low production hypercars: Porsche 918 or McLaren P1.