France February 2016

Will the new Mehari replicate the success of the old one?

Chasin' For The Sun & Glory Edition 

The French EV market continues on a high note, with almost 3.000 units sold, up 84% regarding the same month last year, with the EV Share rising to 1.80% share.

Looking at the monthly models ranking, it's business as usual in the leadership, with the Renault Zoe on top, up 58% YoY, followed by the Nissan Leaf in Second (286 units, best result in 11 months), while in Third Place the Renault Kangoo ZE is back to its usual self, with 256 units, followed by the BMW i3, with 126 units, and the Peugeot iOn, once again finishing in the three digit area.

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Renault Zoe	1.201
2	Nissan Leaf	286
3	Renault Kangoo ZE	256
3	BMW i3 *	126
5	Peugeot iOn	109

In the YTD ranking, the Bolloré Blue Car lost two positions and dropped to #7, surpassed by the VW Golf GTE (#5) and the BMW i3 (#6), speaking of BMW, its presence in the ranking was greatly enhanced by the 225xe AT and 330e, two models that look poised for brilliant career in this market.

There was an important arrival this month, in the form of the Citröen e-Mehari, a cheap, half-wacky, half-cool, new convertible from Citröen, based on the Bolloré Blue Car Golia, both are set to find glory in the sun-friendly shores of the French Riviera, to evaluate the future success of the little loisir-mobile of PSA, it must at least outsell its lesser known Bolloré relative/separated at birth twin, while at the same transform itself in the best selling plug-in from PSA, something that has become a bit more difficult, given the recent success of the Pug iOn, anything more than that will be received with a smile from Carlos Tavares, head of PSA...

In the manufacturers ranking, Renault is stable in the lead (47% Share), followed by Nissan (11%) and ever-more-complete BMW (8%).

Pl	France	Feb.	YTD	%	'15Pl
1	Renault Zoe	1.201	1.970	39	1
2	Nissan Leaf	286	459	9	3
3	Renault Kangoo ZE	256	361	7	2
4	Peugeot iOn	109	270	5	9
5 6	Volkswagen Golf GTE BMW i3 *	104 126	167 162	3 3	4 8
7 8 8	Bolloré Blue Car Volvo XC90 T8 Audi A3 e-Tron	65 79 88	156 153 153	3 3 3	5 N/A 6
10 11	Citröen C-Zero BMW X5 40e	87 58	149 137	3 3	15 20
12 13	Kia Soul EV Porsche Cayenne Plug-In	56 39	95 91	2 2	13 12
14 15 16	Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia ** Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Peugeot Partner EV	40 25 32	82 66 65	2 1 1	16 7 21
17	Tesla Model S	27	64	1	10
18 19 20 20 22 23 24 25 26 26	Goupil BMW 225xe Active Tourer BMW 330e Citröen Berlingo EV Mercedes C350e Renault Twizy e) Volvo V60 Plug-In Bolloré Blue Car Golia Volkswagen Passat GTE Volkswagen e-Golf	31 46 34 21 24 15 8 21 3 12	61 57 35 35 34 31 24 21 19 19	1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0	14 N/A N/A 23 27 11 26 N/A 19 22
28	BMW i8	5	18	0	25
29 30 31 31 31 34 35 36	Volkswagen e-Up!  Mercedes GLE500e Mercedes B250e Smart Fortwo ED Toyota Prius Plug-In Mitsubishi I-Miev Citröen e-Mehari Mercedes S500e	8 9 8 8 8 7 8 3	15 13 12 12 12 11 8 5	0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	18 31 24 17 28 30 N/A 32
	TOTAL	2.956	5.042	100

e) Estimate

Source: Automobile Propre; avem.fr

* - 28Bev+ 98 Rex

** - 32 Lcv + 8 Passengers