Norway December 2016

 
Outlander PHEV Wins Best Selling Model Award

There were 3.667 new plug-ins sold in Norway last month, up 26% YoY, pulling the full year figures up to 45.662 units (Largest market in Europe), with the 2016 EV Share ending at 29.5%, a significant leap over the 22.8% of 2015 (Which was already a step above the 14% of 2014, and the 6% of 2013, the 3% of 2012...).

The Tesla Model X was the Best Selling plug-in in December, with 425 units, followed by the hot BMW i3, registering another 413 units, while the last place in the podium was for the surprising Audi A3 e-Tron with 369 units, a new personal record, possibly motivated by some nice discounts by the German carmaker.

The Hyundai Ioniq Electric was Fifth with 293 units, despite some production constraints (Apparently the Korean manufacturer wasn't expecting so much demand), the sleek hatchback is confirming itself as a force to be reckoned in 2017.

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Tesla Model X	425
2	BMW i3	413
3	Audi A3 e-Tron	369
4	Volkswagen Golf GTE	305
5	Hyundai Ioniq Electric	293

Looking at the 2016 ranking, we take a close look at the Five Best Selling Models performance:

#1 - Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV: For the first time ever, a PHEV was the Best Selling Plug-in in Norway, most importantly, the Japanese SUV was the Best Selling model, all fuels counted, but more on that below, after a record year (5.136 units), in no small part due to the more generous incentives to PHEV's, the 50 kms e-range SUV filled a gap in the market for decently-priced family-sized plug-ins, with the added comfort of AWD in snowy Norway. This year the PHEV seems easy to win again, it just have to keep an eye on the VW GTE models, but it won't be able to follow the pace of the new long range BEV's.

#2 - Volkswagen e-Golf: Despite a decent first half of the year, the German BEV dropped in the second half, unable to follow the Outlander PHEV in the race for Best Selling Plug-in and ending the year with 4.705 units, a large drop from the 8.943 sold in 2015, which granted at the time that year Best Seller title. Nevertheless, it won the Best Selling BEV Award, and with the new longer-range version coming soon, expect it to be one of the strong contenders for the 2017 Best Seller title.

#3 - Volkswagen Golf GTE: With its all-electric sibling faltering, it was up to the plug-in hybrid Golf to pick up the slack, and with 4.337 units registered, double of what it did in the previous year, it has done a good job at it, ending in Third. Even with a promised larger-battery coming in somewhere this year, don't expect the sporty hatch to repeat the Podium in 2017, as longer range BEV's, like the Opel Ampera-e and Renault Zoe will likely overcome their brands weaknesses and race the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3 for a podium seat.

#4 - Nissan Leaf: Norway's most popular EV, with over 20.000 units zooming the streets, the Japanese Hatchback had a year with ups and downs, after a strong beginning, thanks to the new 30kWh version, sales were down in the second half of 2016, no doubt influenced by the upcoming long range BEV's, set to arrive soon, but also by the never-ending rumors of an updated Nissan Leaf, coming somewhere in 2017. This years career will depend greatly of what Nissan has up its sleeve and how fast will it deliver, if it releases a greatly improved Leaf in the first months of the year, then a race for the Best Seller title is possible, if not, then it might not even reach a Top 5 position...

#5 - BMW i3: The German hot hatch 2016 performance proved once again that Size Matters (In batteries, at least), the BMW i3 had by far its best year in 2016, with 3.946 units, but 62% of deliveries were concentrated in the last four months of the year, when the 33 kWh version arrived en masse. With BMW now heavily focused in plug-ins and with another battery upgrade scheduled for late this year, expect it to be one of the strong contenders for the 2017 title.

As for last minute changes, the Mercedes B250e climbed one position to #9, displacing the Renault Zoe to #10, the Tesla Model X jumped to #11, stealing at the same time the Rookie of the Year title from the BMW 225xe AT hands doors.

The good news for BEV's didn't stopped there, as the Nissan e-NV200/Evalia twins (2016 Best Selling LCV's) surpassed the Volvo XC90 PHEV and climbed to #18, while the Hyundai Ioniq Electric ended the year rising to #20. A Top 10 position in 2017 seems to be a given for the Korean model, the question should be, will it sneak into the Top 5?

Looking at the manufacturers ranking, Volkswagen (29%) won another Manufacturers trophy (The third in a row), followed from a far by BMW (14%) and the 2011 trophy winner Mitsubishi (12%), with the two times champion (2012 and '13) Nissan (11%) ending the year just outside the podium.

The BEV / PHEV breakdown confirms the trend for plug-in hybrid rise, with this technology counting in 2016 for a record 44% of all plug-ins sold in Norway, a significant surge from the 25% in 2015. And to think that PHEV's only had 10% share in 2014...

Looking at Fuel Cell numbers, Hyundai won the Best Seller title by 13 to 10 against Toyota, despite the fact that the Japanese Mirai is a more recent model, with better specs. But those looks...  

Pl	Norway	Dec.	YTD	%	'15Pl
1	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	259	5.136	11	4
2	Volkswagen e-Golf	225	4.705	10	1
3	Volkswagen Golf GTE	305	4.337	9	6
4	Nissan Leaf	257	4.162	9	3
5	BMW i3	413	3.946	9	5
6 7 8	Volkswagen Passat GTE Audi A3 e-Tron Tesla Model S	159 369 263	2.552 2.283 2.051	6 5 4	20 7 2
9	Mercedes B250e	168	1.895	4	10
10	Renault Zoe	75	1.818	4	8
11 12 13	Tesla Model X BMW 225xe Active Tourer Kia Soul EV	425 92 53	1.430 1.332 1.175	3 3 3	N/A N/A 11
14	Volkswagen e-Up!	111	1.148	3	9
15 16	Mercedes C350e BMW X5 40e	20 17	987 955	2 2	22 19
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35	Volvo V60 Plug-In Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia * Volvo XC90 T8 Hyundai Ioniq Electric Mercedes GLC350e Audi Q7 e-Tron Peugeot iOn BMW 330e Mitsubishi I-Miev Citröen C-Zero Peugeot Partner EV Mercedes GLE500e Renault Kangoo ZE Porsche Cayenne Plug-In Renault Twizy Ford Focus Electric BMW i8 Smart Fortwo ED Citröen Berlingo EV Others	22 42 2 293 4 18 7 10 5 6 30 4 10 1 2	730 725 688 646 626 385 335 300 273 214 165 158 131 104 81 47 35 33 30 44	2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	12 14 N/A N/A N/A N/A 13 N/A 26 16 18 27 17 24 29 21 25 15 23
	TOTAL	3.667	45.662	100

* - 24 Pass + 26 Lcv

Source: elbil.no; ofvas.no

Models breakdown by Fuel Source

December Ranking

Pl	Model	Dec.
1	Volkswagen Tiguan	650
2	Volvo XC60	602
3	Tesla Model X	425
4	BMW i3	413
5 6 7 8 9 10	Toyota RAV4 Audi A3 e-Tron Volkswagen Golf GTE Hyundai Ioniq Electric Toyota Yaris Skoda Octavia	374 369 305 293 292 287

Splitting models by fuel source, December signaled the return of regular ICE models to the top, with the VW Tiguan winning the Best Seller title (Now where's that Tiguan GTE, VW?), followed closely by the surprising Volvo XC60, with the first plug-in arriving in Third, with the Tesla Model X. Interestingly, all podium places belonged to CUV/SUV's...

In the following positions we have the hot BMW i3 (Fourth), the Hybridized RAV4 (#5) and two PHEV's, the Audi A3 e-Tron and VW Golf GTE, with the Hyundai Ioniq Electric reaching #8.

In sum, we have a colourful Top 10, with three BEV's (The i3 only had 1 Rex registered), two PHEV's, two HEV's and three ICE.

Full Year Ranking

Pl	Model	2016
1	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	5.136
2	Toyota RAV4	4.955
3	Volkswagen e-Golf	4.705
4	Toyota Auris	4.419
5 6 7 8 9 10	Volkswagen Golf GTE Toyota Yaris Nissan Leaf Volkswagen Golf ICE BMW i3 Skoda Octavia	4.337 4.247 4.162 4.106 3.946 3.795

With some 30% share, plug-ins performance in the general ranking are more relevant than ever, besides the aforementioned win of the Outlander PHEV, there were an additional four plug-ins (#3 e-Golf, #5 Golf GTE, #7 Leaf, #9 i3) in the Top 10, add the three HEV's present (#2 RAV4, #4 Auris, #6 Yaris), and we have 80% of the Best Selling models being alternatively fueled vehicles!

In fact, the Best Selling ICE model, the Golf, was only #8 this year, with less than a third of sales of the nameplate, in fact it was the worst selling of all three drivetrains.

One day all markets will be like this...

Will we see something like this on the European market in five years time?