Five years Ago...September 2011

These were the pioneers to the current EV Scene

Sometimes we forget how fast the EV Market is evolving, while there are times when we get frustrated that things are not growing faster and a real impact on the Global Automotive market is still years ahead, if we look back five years, we will find a very different scenery, both regarding Models, but especially in Volumes...

This was the YTD Top 5 in September 2011:

1. Nissan Leaf - 16.588 units;
2. Mitsubishi I-Miev - 6.429;
3. Chevrolet Volt - 6.282;
4. Chery QQ3 EV - 1.444;
5. Smart Fortwo ED - 883;

Several things come to mind:

- The market was much more concentrated, the leader Nissan Leaf had some 40% the total market, while the Top 3 owned 75% on the market;

 - The only survivor in the current 2016 Top 10 ranking is the Nissan Leaf, while the Gen 1 Volt ended its career last year, with the Gen. 2 following on its predecessor successful career, the remaining models are still available, but are either at the end of their career (Smart), irrelevant (Chery) or being surpassed by more substantial EV's (I-Miev family);

 - While the current Top 5 is diversified, with one high end sedan (Model S), two SUV's (Outlander PHEV and Qin) and two compacts (C-Segment for Euro-speakers), back in the day, the same two compacts were joined by three tiny city cars, which underlined the idea that many had then, that EV's were little more than glorified golf carts. Who wanted "real" family cars, capable to haul the loved ones and respective stuff, were left with few choices;

 - The real difference is in the sales numbers, which speak volumes of how far we have come, we can say that we are now registering twice as much in one month (77k in September) as in the first 9 months of 2011. For example, the September performance of the Model S (8k), would be enough to reach Second Place in 2011.

 Talking about these models career:

 - The Leaf is at over 240.000 units by now, being the most popular EV in the World, so one can only classify it as a success;

 - The Mitsubishi I-Miev family, including the Citröen C-Zero and Peugeot iOn, is currently at 38k units, could be classified as OK selling, rather as a success, but currently it is getting long in the tooth and only a low, low price can help it find new buyers;

 - As for the First Generation Chevrolet Volt , the roughly 100.000 units produced (Including the European Ampera) did the job of setting the first stone on the GM e-mobility plan without losing money, but GM could have done so much better with this car...

 - The Chery EV (27k) and Smart ED (19k) ultimately were handicapped by their automakers limited ambitions, especially in the case of Smart.