Finland December 2014

Pure electrics have it difficult in Finland

Outlander PHEV #1

The 2014 final numbers from Finland show a market in rapid growth, with 440 units YTD and 0,42% EV Share, this market is still far from the numbers of some of its neighbors, but with sales more than doubling (181 units in '13), one can be confident that this market is on the right track.

The Tesla Model S was the Best Seller in December, with 13 units, but the YTD trophy went to the new poster-boy, the Mitsu Outlander PHEV, with 146 units (A new yearly record) and 33% share, head and shoulders above the Model S, which is counting with the AWD versions to have a say in the leadership race in 2015.

The Nissan Leaf ended again in Third, taking the Bronze medal for the third time in a row, the consistency of the japanese car is such (24% share in 2012, 23% in '13 and 21% now), that we can evaluate the growth rate of this market by its performance, from stagnant sales in 2013 (43 sales in '12, 41 units in '13) to the significant growth afterwards (41 units in '13 vs 79 now)

The previous leader, the Volvo V60 Plug-In ended in #4, with 12% share, while the previous runner-up, the Prius Plug-In, ended in #5, its career has been all downhill since 2012, from Top Dog then, with 73 units, to #2 in 2013 with 45 units and now #5 with only 21 sales. This isn't the only market where this happens, which should make Toyota think if they aren't wasting too much resources in Fuel Cells and disregarding their Plan B, now that plug-ins are growing everywhere, the Plug-In Prius sales are diving a bit throughout the world, looking like a missed opportunity...

The Finnish market has some curious things, with AWD cars making 46% of the market, leaving promising signs for the coming wave of plug-in SUV's here, and it had traditionally a big PHEV rate (+/- 70%), while this year the breakdown between PHEV / BEV is more balanced (57 / 43), with the reason being...Tesla, with its 20% share increase, the american brand pushed by itself pure electric cars closer to 50/50 rate in this usually PHEV-loving market.

Pl	Finland	Dec. '14	YTD '14	%	Pl '13
1 2	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Tesla Model S	10 13	146 94	33 21	N/A 7
3	Nissan Leaf	6	79	18	3
4	Volvo V60 Plug-In	5	51	12	1
5	Toyota Prius Plug-In	1	21	5	2
6	Opel Ampera		17	4	4
7 8	Porsche Panamera Plug-In Porsche Cayenne Plug-In	1 3	12 6	3 1	8 N/A
9 9 10 10 12 12	Ford Focus Electric Volkswagen e-Up! Mitsubishi I-Miev Volkswagen Golf GTE Fisker Karma Mercedes S500 Plug-In	3 2 1	4 4 2 2 1 1	1 1 0 0 0 0	N/A N/A 5 N/A 8 N/A
	TOTAL	45	440	100

Source: trafi.fi