Belgium January 2016

The Two New Heavyweight Champions in Belgium?

Sweet As Chocolate (On Snowy Days)

A dazzling new record of 743 EV's was set in Belgium last January, up 55% above the previous record of 479 units set in June '15 and 139% above the result of twelve months ago, with the 2016 EV Share starting at an astounding 1.68%, this is the first time the market share is above 1% and also the first time Belgium sold more EV's than Netherlands...

This Sweet as Belgian Chocolate start had the help of a new purchase subsidy in the Flanders region, that started on January 1st, with the majority of models benefiting from the favorable season, but there was one particular type of vehicle to excel last month: The Luxury SUV.

As snow visited Belgium in January, we had a 100% SUV podium, with the Volvo XC90 T8 beating the all-time sales record for a single model, with 203 units, in only its third month on the market, followed at a distance by another newcomer, the BMW X5 40e registered 108 units, while last year runner-up, the Porsche Cayenne Plug-In, started this year race in Third Place, with 93 units.

Looking at the rest of the ranking, the Tesla Model S and BMW i3 were tied in Fourth, with 47 units, while in #7 we have another Luxury SUV surpassing expectations, with the GLE500e selling 24 units (pb) and becoming the best selling Mercedes in the ranking.

Good result also for the veteran Citröen C-Zero, registering 8 units in January, exactly the same amount of units it had during the whole year of 2015...

On the other hand, two models under-performed in a significant way: The Volvo V60 Plug-In registered only 6 units, when a year ago it had 26, while the VW Golf GTE also only sold 6 units, far from the regular two digits sales of last year. 

In the manufacturers ranking, Volvo started 2016 in the lead (28%), followed by BMW (24%), and Porsche in Third, with 14%.

As curiosity, there was one Toyota Mirai registered last month. The Belgian roads will never be the same...

Pl	Belgium	Jan.	YTD	%	'15Pl
1	Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV	203	203	27	13
2	BMW X5 40e PHEV	108	108	15	15
3 4	Porsche Cayenne Plug-In Tesla Model S	93 47	93 47	13 6	2 1
4	BMW i3 *	47	47	6	3
6	Nissan Leaf	31	31	4	8
7	Mercedes GLE500e	24	24	3	27
8	Mercedes C350e	23	23	3	16
9	Mercedes B250e	19	19	3	11
9	BMW i8	19	19	3	9
11	Audi A3 e-Tron	16	16	2	7
11	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	16	16	2	6
11 14 15 16 16 18 19	Renault Zoe Renault Kangoo ZE e) Renault Twizy Citröen C-Zero Mercedes S500e Porsche Panamera Plug-In Volvo V60 Plug-In	16 15 9 8 8 7 6	16 15 9 8 8 7 6	2 2 1 1 1 1 1	18 N/A 12 24 14 10 4
19 21 21 23 24 24 24 24 28	Volkswagen Golf GTE Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia Peugeot iOn Smart Fortwo ED Kia Soul EV Peugeot Partner EV Volkswagen e-Golf Volkswagen e-Up! Volkswagen Passat GTE	6 5 5 3 2 2 2 2 1	6 5 5 3 2 2 2 2 1	1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0	5 21 20 19 23 N/A 17 21 33
	TOTAL	743	743	100

Source: febiac.be

* - 9 Bev + 38 Rex

Plug-Ins Versus Regular Hybrids

Pl	Model	2016
1	Toyota Auris Hybrid	334
2	Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV	203
3	Toyota Yaris Hybrid	176
4	BMW X5 40 PHEV	108
5	Porsche Cayenne Plug-In	93

  

If we combine regular hybrid sales with plug-ins, it is visible the progression of plug-in hybrids regarding regular ones, with only the Toyota Auris Hybrid staying out of reach (For how long?) of the Plug-In SUV Armada. The Yaris Hybrid dropped to Third, while Lexus hybrid SUV's simply just disappeared from the ranking. 

Will we see Plug-in Hybrids outsell regular hybrids this year?