Norway May 2016

Tough life for these two EV's

The Rise and Rise of PHEV's Edition

In May there were 3.340 EV's sold, up 23% YoY, with the EV Share slightly down to 29,3%, with the bulk of growth coming from PHEV's, which have grown 132% YoY, while on the same period, BEV's have seen their sales drop by 24%.

Have Norwegians suddenly converted to PHEV's?

I believe the strongest reason for this has to do with buyers holding off for the increased range BEV's, coming in the last quarter of the year, so expect for BEV's to continue dropping until then, followed by record months later in the year.

Looking at the EV monthly models ranking, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (490 units) was once again the Monthly Best Seller, the second third consecutive time a plug-in hybrid wins that honor, with two other PHEV's appearing in the ranking: The Passat GTE was Third with 313 units, while its smaller relative, the VW Golf GTE, was Fifth with 268 units.

The VW e-Golf continues on the downward trend, with 300 units registered, less than half (606) of what registered twelve months ago, the improved range is still a few months away, so expect this slowing sales trend to continue throughout the year.

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	490
2	Nissan Leaf	320
3	Volkswagen Passat GTE	313
4	Volkswagen e-Golf	300
5	Volkswagen Golf GTE	268

Looking at the Year-to-date EV ranking, the main news were Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV reaching the Second Position, pushing the Nissan Leaf to Third Place, at this pace it won't be surprising that the japanese SUV reaches soon the First Position, which would be something unheard of for a PHEV in Norway.

A special mention for the good numbers presented by two Mercedes: The B250e registered 167 units (Year Best), jumping three positions to #10, while the GLC350e registered 161 units right in its second month in the market, leaving good indications that the Three-Pointed-Star automaker might have a winner here.

Looking at the manufacturers ranking, Volkswagen (32%) continues in the lead, followed at a distance by Nissan (14%) and Mitsubishi (13%, up 1%), while BMW (11%) on the lookout for a slip from the adversaries to join the podium.

Pl	Norway	May	YTD	%	'15Pl
1	Volkswagen e-Golf	300	2.554	14	1
2	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	490	2.322	12	4
3	Nissan Leaf	320	2.274	12	3
4	Volkswagen Golf GTE	268	1.820	10	6
5	BMW i3	120	1.054	6	5
6 7	Tesla Model S Audi A3 e-Tron	156 143	957 955	5 5	2 7
8 9	Volkswagen Passat GTE Renault Zoe	313 64	931 832	5 4	20 8
10	Mercedes B250e	167	583	3	10
11	BMW X5 40e	100	571	3	19
12	Kia Soul EV	77	531	3	11
13	Volkswagen e-Up	99	516	3	9
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 34	Volvo V60 Plug-In Mercedes C350e BMW 225xe Active Tourer Volvo XC90 T8  Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia Mercedes GLC350e Peugeot iOn Citröen C-Zero BMW 330e Mercedes GLE500e Mitsubishi I-Miev Renault Kangoo ZE Porsche Cayenne Plug-In Peugeot Partner EV Smart Fortwo ED BMW i8 Ford Focus Electric Citröen Berlingo EV Renault Twizy Mercedes S500e Porsche Panamera Plug-In Toyota Prius Plug-In	50 98 120 64 41 161 12 19 37 17 68 4 9 16 4 1 1 1	394 390 360 348 332 198 158 122 109 95 86 67 65 54 29 20 19 7 5 4 3 3	2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	12 22 N/A N/A 14 N/A 13 16 N/A 27 26 17 24 18 15 25 21 23 29 30 N/A 28
	TOTAL	3.340	18.768	100

Models breakdown by Fuel Source

The percentage of plug-ins in the general ranking is so significant, that we've decided to make a separate table for the breakdown of models by fuel source:

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	490
2	Volkswagen Golf ICE	486
3	Toyota Yaris	483
4	Toyota Auris	448
5 6 7 8 9 10	Toyota RAV4 Skoda Octavia Nissan Leaf Volkswagen Passat GTE Volkswagen e-Golf Volkswagen Golf GTE	414 344 320 313 300 268

With 29% share, the EV's performance in the general ranking is becoming increasingly more relevant, of the 1.054 units sold by the leader VW Golf in May, only 486 didn't had a Plug.

If we split models by fuel source, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV just managed to be the best selling model, outselling the Golf ICE by only 4 units and the Toyota Yaris by 7.

The remaining four Plug-ins in the Top 10 are situated at the bottom, in #7 we have the Nissan Leaf, followed by three VW's: The #8 Passat GTE (Which managed to outsell the regular Passat's), the #9 e-Golf and #10 Golf GTE.