World Top 20 June 2017 (Updated)

Manga-styled Prius

Models - Toyota Prius new owner of the Throne

The global EV market continues to grow at rapid pace and, as predicted last month, registrations in June surpassed the 100.000 units, for only the second time ever, representing a 38% growth YoY, with the YTD total up 42%, to over 450k, we are headed for a total sales number this year of around 1,1 million units, the first time the PEV market will reach seven digits in a year.

Interestingly, as June marks the first time the yearly PEV Global market share hits the 1% mark, we can say that Round One of the Electrification Game has been won, six and a half years later.

Now that Round Two has started, will reaching the two digits of the World market take as long as Round One?

I hope not.

Anyway, back to Earth, 2017, in the models ranking, the Best Seller of the Month was the Tesla Model S, thanks to the usual last-month-of-the-quarter-peak (6.157 units), winning for the first time this year the Best Seller Of The Month award, but the real news was the rise to power of a nameplate that not long ago was thought to be doomed by its rulers, due to Mad Cow Fuell Cell disease. 

Turns out Toyota has recovered from the disease and betted heavily on the Second Generation Prius PHEV, not only providing it with decent specs and less divisive looks regarding the standard Prius, but also competitive pricing (At least until the Ioniq PHEV starts to make itself noticed, but that's another story to be written in future editions), and production capability (Hear that, Chevrolet?), allowing it to sit for the first time ever in the PEV Iron Throne, with around 27.000 units in six months, which is almost as much units as it had in the whole year of 2012, its best sales year to date. 

Looking below in the ranking, the other podium bearers are not too far from the Top Spot, while in #5 .we see the first position change, with the Zhidou D2 EV (4.714 deliveries, new record) surpassing the BAIC EC180, becoming also the highest ranked Chinese model.

As this is a special edition, we dig a little deeper, into the Top 20, where we can see seven Chinese models (#11 BYD e5, #13 SAIC eRX5, #14 JAC iEV6S, #15 Geely Emgrand EV, #16 BYD Tang, #18 BYD Song PHEV and #19 Chery eQ), making it nine models coming from China in the Top 20.

Thanks to a slow (Some say "snail paced"), but steady production increase, the Chevrolet Bolt it's starting to appear on the radar, in #12, so expect the long range Small MPVCUV/Compact Car to climb to the Top 10 later in the year. 

Comparing with last year, while some models climbed positions, like the aforementioned Prius, or the Chinese Zhidou D2 EV and BAIC EC180, others dropped significantly, none more so than the BYD Tang, #16 now, when last year it ended in #3. Not enough rich people willing to buy an expensive BYD?

Other models dropping were the Chevrolet Volt, down from #4 to #9, or the Outlander PHEV (From #5 to #10, is it starting to become passé?).

In the Rookie section, we see two new models showing up, both Chinese compact PHEV SUV's, with the #13 Roewe eRX5 momentarily outrunning the #18 BYD Song PHEV. Are we witnessing the making of a new rivalry?

Looking at the BEV / PHEV breakdown, BEV's are once again leading the race with 64% share, exactly the same number as it ended in 2016.

Pl	WORLD	June	YTD	%	'16Pl
1	Toyota Prius Prime/PHV	6.038	26.867	6	64
2	Nissan Leaf	4.647	26.591	6	1
3	Tesla Model S	6.157	25.450	6	2
4 5 6	Tesla Model X Zhidou D2 EV BAIC EC180	4.684 4.714 2.563	21.550 18.693 17.939	5 4 4	7 32 42
7	Renault Zoe	4.251	17.324	4	8
8	BMW i3	2.387	14.531	3	6
9	Chevrolet Volt	2.286	13.391	3	4
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV BYD e5 Chevrolet Bolt (1) SAIC Roewe eRX5 PHEV JAC iEV6S  Geely Emgrand EV  BYD Tang Hyundai Ioniq Electric BMW 330e BYD Song PHEV Chery eQ	1.986 3.206 2.223 1.541 3.001 478 1.573 1.314 1.423 4.552 3.466	12.787 10.856 9.440 9.205 8.197 7.982 7.502 7.209 7.124 6.838 6.605	3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1	5 17 83 N/A 61 13 3 38 27 N/A 15
	TOTAL	100.918	452.329

(1) - Includes Opel Ampera-e

Manufacturers -  BYD Rises to Third

BYD has set an ambitious goal of doubling sales regarding 2016, and after a slow start, the Chinese brand is pushing hard to reach its own goals, in June it delivered a record 11.198 units, allowing it to jump two positions to Third.

Will BYD beat its own record in July? It all points to that, the question will be by how much, and will it be able to beat the all time record of 14.029 deliveries, set by Tesla last March.

My bet is that BYD will only be able to do it in September...The month it should reach the yearly leadership.

As this is a Full Year edition, we dig a littler deeper into the Top 20, where we see Zotye in an unusually low #14, with Ford and Chery also dropping significantly, while Hyundai shows up for the first time, in #17, expect both Hyundai and sister brand Kia to continue climbing in the ranking in the near future, as they expand production capacity and product lines.

Pl	WORLD	June	YTD	%	'16Pl
1	Tesla	10.841	47.000	10	2
2	BMW	8.815	41.715	9	3
3	BYD	11.198	34.802	8	1
4	BAIC	5.147	30.151	7	5
5 6 7	Nissan Toyota Chevrolet	5.059 6.038 4.510	29.055 26.920 22.847	6 6 5	4 30 8
8	Renault	4.699	19.549	4	10
9	Zhidou	4.714	18.718	4	14
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	Volkswagen Mitsubishi Mercedes SAIC Roewe Zotye Ford JMC Hyundai Chery JAC Audi	3.565 2.255 2.744 2.367 3.743 1.818 2.102 2.013 3.466 3.001 1.760	16.427 14.831 14.143 13.770 12.837 10.864 10.567 10.232 9.425 9.401 8.562	4 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2	6 9 13 15 7 11 19 24 12 16 20

Looking at current segment leaders:

A Segment / City Cars - Zhidou D2 EV and BAIC EC180 are doing their own race for #1;

B Segment / Subcompacts - Ditto here, with the Renault Zoe and BMW i3;

C Segment / Compacts - Prius has surpassed the Leaf, probably for a long time;

D Segment / Midsize - BMW 330e, but the VW Passat GTE is less than 1.000 units behind;

E Segment / Full size - Tesla Model S, hands down;

F Segment / Full size Luxury - BMW 740e, with 1.207 units, but not for long, as the Porsche Panamera PHEV scored 600 units only in June;

SUV/ CUV - Tesla Model X, hands down;

MPV - Chevrolet Bolt, with no real competition that can get close to it;

Sports Cars - As ever, BMW i8;

Pick-ups - As ever, Mitsubishi Minicab Miev Truck, with 200 units and in runnout mode, is still enough to beat the few electric Chinese pick-ups.