Japan January 2017

Io, behold the 2017 Best Seller in Japan...

Waiting for the Second Coming

The Japanese EV was down 48% YoY in January, with some 1.800 units, placing the EV Share at 0,46%. With numbers below last year volumes, one has to go back five years to see such low numbers, which doesn't come as a surprise, considering how the two local heavy-weights are behaving.

The 30kWh-kick effect has waned and the Nissan Leaf, the main driving force of the market, responsible for 78% of the market, has seen its sales slow down, so unless Nissan throws something new to the table (40kWh version, Gen 2 Leaf...), sales will continue to drop and the upcoming Second Generation Toyota Prius PHEV will have the 2017 Best Seller trophy served on a silver platter.

To worsen things, the emissions scandal is continuing to hurt Mitsubishi and its Outlander PHEV, with registrations down 76%(!) to 190 units last month.

The remaining models in the ranking have comparatively small numbers, with the front two models gobbling 88% of the market, but not all is lost, the Second Generation Prius PHEV is expected to arrive soon and if Toyota managed to win the 2012 Best Seller title with a "light range" (Putting it in mild terms) Prius PHEV, then this decent-range, competitively priced second generation should improve significantly on the result achieved that year (12.300 units), which given the current state of affairs, should be more than enough to beat the current front runners and spike sales of this dormant market.

Pl	Japan	January	2017	%	Pl '16
1	Nissan Leaf	1.431	1.431	78	1
2	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	190	190	10	2
3	BMW i3 e)	80	80	4	4
4	Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia e)	75	75	4	3
5	Mitsubishi I-Miev	31	31	2	8
6 7 8 9 10 11	Tesla Model S e) Mitsubishi Minicab Miev BMW 330e  e) BMW i8 e) Tesla Model X  e) Mit. Minicab Miev Truck	15 11 10 5 5 4	15 11 10 5 5 4	1 1 1 0 0 0	6 5 12 10 N/A 9
	TOTAL	1.857	1.857	100

e) Estimate