Europe April 2016

Outlander PHEV Is Back 

The European EV market had more than 16.000 registrations in March, representing a 28% increase over April 2015, with the market set to surpass the 200.000 units by year end.

Looking at the Monthly Ranking:

#1 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV – After a slow start, the Outlander PHEV is back at its usual self, winning its second consecutive Monthly Best Seller title, with 1.970 units, but YTD sales are down 12%, meaning that Mitsubishi hasn’t found a way to replace the average 300/400 units/month it had last year coming from the Dutch market. Although growing elsewhere, like Norway or Spain, the Japanese SUV will have a hard time to grow sales and remain #1 for a long time.

#2 Renault Zoe – In its best sales streak since it started, back in 2012, April signaled the 8^th consecutive time the French hatch sold more than 1.000 units, with 1.959 units, with Renault finally trying to sell actively the car, including batteries in the initial price and providing friendly discounts, this is one EV with good prospects in the near future, will it get back to #1 soon?

#3 Nissan Leaf – With the availability bottlenecks of the 30kWh part of the past, sales of the Japanese hatch were up 77% in April, with 3 out of 4 Leaf belonging to the extended-range version. With 1.860 units registered last month, one wonders for how long will the Nissan all-electric model remain in the podium, as longer range BEV’s (New BMW i3, 2017 Opel Ampera-e…) might sway away buyers from the most common EV in the world.

#4 VW Golf GTE – Thanks to the Norwegian result (602 units sold there), Volkswagen’s sporty hatch managed to reach positive ground (Up 12% YoY) in April, with 1.225 units, this recent turn of Norway to PHEV’s was fundamental to offset the sales drought in the Netherlands and continue to improve on the 2015 performance.

#5 VW Passat GTE – The surprise of the month, VW’s midsize plug-in offering managed to reach the four-digit sales area last month, with 1.012 units, a year best, with stringent emission legislation spreading across Europe, many fleet and middle-managers will switch their diesel-burners for this model, flying them through the highway and smashing the accelerator to the ground like if their future depended on it. A future Best Seller?

As you might have noticed, this post is different from usual, it is result of an agreement with CleanTechnica / EV Obsession, where this post is simultaneously published, i want to thank Zach for making this possible and we hope this will be continued in the future.   

Year-To-Date Ranking

Looking at the YTD ranking, the Mitsu Outlander PHEV is firm at the highest place in the ranking, with two closes races behind it, the Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe are running for Second Place and have only 30 units between them, while the Tesla Model S and VW Golf GTE are fighting for #4, with only 35 units separating them.

If the sprint for #2 is hard to predict what will happen, the race for #4 has a foreseeable behavior in the next couple of months: The Golf GTE will surpass the Model S in May, but then in June, the Californian model will make another 2.000-something selling month and return to the Fourth Position. It is almost so predictable as the English Premier League used to be…

Talking about Volkswagen, the german brand had a positive month, with the e-Golf up one position to #8, like the Passat GTE, also up one position to #10, while in the MPV class there is an interesting race between the leader Mercedes B250e (239 units, up one position to #16), and the #20 BMW 225xe Active Tourer, with a record month, with 292 units.

Looking at the brands ranking, the trophy bearer, Volkswagen (16%, up 1%) is holding Renault (15% share) at bay, while in Third we have Nissan, with 13% (Down 1%), trying to keep the #4 Mitsubishi (13%) and #5 BMW (12%) outside the podium.

And now a new feature on EV Sales...

...And for those who prefer the old format:

Pl	Europe	April	2016	%	'15Pl
1	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	1.970	8.376	13	1
2	Nissan Leaf	1.860	7.827	12	5
3	Renault Zoe	1.959	7.797	12	2
4	Tesla Model S	768	4.315	7	4
5	Volkswagen Golf GTE	1.225	4.280	7	3
6	BMW i3	859	3.492	5	6
7	Volvo XC90 T8	953	3.466	5	18
8	Volkswagen e-Golf	690	2.907	4	4
9 10	Audi A3 e-Tron Volkswagen Passat GTE	575 1.012	2.852 2.480	4 4	7 12
11 12	BMW X5 40e Mercedes C350e	497 258	2.073 1.518	3 2	22 11
13	Renault Kangoo ZE	374	1.320	2	13
14	Kia Soul EV	325	1.194	2	10
15	Volvo V60 Plug-In	243	1.145	2	9
16 17 18 19 20	Mercedes B250e Porsche Cayenne Plug-In BMW 330e Volkswagen e-Up! BMW 225xe Active Tourer	239 184 339 258 279	956 927 898 865 856	1 1 1 1 1	17 14 37 16 31
	TOTAL	16.323	65.218

Which format do you like best?