Europe December 2014

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Zoe Steals the Show Edition

With 11.000 units sold last December, some would say that the European EV market was down 40% regarding the same month last year and that would be due to lower gas prices and this would be the sign of a struggling 2015 for plug-ins in Europe.

Yes, numbers can be played that way, but remember that at the time, sales highly were inflated by the Dutch year end rush, if we take that abnormal number (14.197) off, last months result is actually the best EVER in Europe, contributing for a yearly sales jump of 49%, ending at just a smidge over 100K units (100.060, to be more exact, which could be even a bit higher as some markets don't break sales by fuel source). Not bad for a struggling niche, eh?

Looking at the monthly models ranking, the Renault Zoe delivered an astonishing result (2.538 units), performing a new Personal Best and a Year Best for a single model, while at the same time reaching #1 for the first time since June '13.

Tesla also impressed, with 1.477 units, its best result since March, while in #6 we have another Renault, the workhorse Kangoo ZE had its best month since September '13, selling 582 units, underlining a perfect month for the french brand.

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Renault Zoe	2.538
2	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	1.488
3	Tesla Model S	1.477
4	Nissan Leaf	1.285
5	BMW i3	646

On the YTD ranking, the Model S is up one position to #4, relegating the BMW i3 to #5 (And to think that the german hot-hatch was still #3 last October...), but we have to move to the second half of the ranking to see more last minute changes, with the Audi A3 e-Tron rising two positions to #19, while the Kia Soul EV climbed to #23.

Breaking the ranking by segments, PHEV's were totally dominated by the Outlander PHEV (The #2 Plug-in Hybrid was the Volvo V60 Plug-In, only #7 in the ranking!), while the Leaf collected the BEV trophy, the Rock-Steady (7 consecutive months on the 300/400 area) VW e-Up! won the A-Segment, the Zoe was revived just in time to recover the B-Segment title, the Leaf was the best selling C-car, while in the LCV's, the Renault Kangoo ZE revalidated the title, but the Nissan e-NV200 has been giving a fight lately, so we can see interesting developments here in the near future.

Looking on the Manufacturers ranking, Mitsubishi won the Best-Seller Trophy, relegating the previous leader, Renault, for #2, while Nissan ended in #3, only 300 units behind its Alliance sister.

Looking into 2015, i would see a slower growth rate, with total sales reaching probably the 120-something-thousands, while in the models ranking, the top positions will continue without major surprises, with Top Five models continuing their close run, with the Golf GTE possibly surprising the current status-quo at some point.

Pl	Europe	Dec.	2014	%	'13Pl
1	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	1.488	19.980	20	3
2	Nissan Leaf	1.285	15.275	15	1
3	Renault Zoe	2.538	11.231	11	2
4	Tesla Model S	1.477	9.493	9	7
5	BMW i3	646	8.810	9	12
6	Volkswagen e-Up!	368	5.450	5	11
7	Volvo V60 Plug-In	341	5.099	5	4
8	Renault Kangoo ZE	582	4.197	4	5
9	Volkswagen e-Golf	335	3.328	3	N/A
10	Smart Fortwo ED	452	2.726	3	9
11	Renault Twizy	181	2.346	2	10
12	Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia	378	2.300	2	N/A
13 14	Bolloré Blue Car Toyota Prius Plug-In	100 42	1.170 899	1 1	16 8
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30	BMW i8 Opel Ampera Mitsubishi I-Miev Porsche Panamera Plug-In Audi A3 e-Tron Citröen C-Zero Peugeot iOn VW Golf GTE Kia Soul EV Goupil Peugeot Partner EV Ford Focus Electric Citröen Berlingo EV Porsche Cayenne Plug-In Mercedes B-Class ED Renault Fluence ZE	141 51 40 24 103 10 22 198 125 40 11 0 14 56 43 1	885 832 674 636 618 606 594 534 468 451 309 203 187 169 150 105	1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	N/A 15 14 21 N/A 12 18 N/A N/A 17 22 24 N/A N/A N/A 19
	TOTAL	11.108	100.060