Germany November 2017

Smart Fortwo ED shines in record month

The PEV Fever has definitely caught on in Germany, with November scoring a record month, with over 6.000 registrations last month, a 144% increase YoY, with the November PEV Share surpassing for the first time the 2% threshold, while the 2017 PEV share climbed to a record 1.5%.

Looking at November Best Selling models, the VW e-Golf scored an amazing 601 deliveries, which would make it the FrontPage headline, if it weren't the 621 deliveries from the Smart Fortwo ED...Will we see this particular race between these two reach unheard heights in December? Do i hear 900 units for both?

Another model in High Voltage is the BMW i3, reaching the Bronze medal,  with 438 units, the Hot Hatch best result in 14 months at home, while Mercedes seems to have found enough units of its GLC350e to break its own sales record, with 410 registrations, a new all time high for an individual Mercedes nameplate in Germany.

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Smart Fortwo ED	621
2	Volkswagen e-Golf	601
3	BMW i3	438
4	Mercedes GLC350e	410
5	BMW 225xe A. Tourer	341

In a highly frangmented market, where the leader Audi A3 e-Tron doesn't even reach the two digits share, and position changes are frequent, this was a somewhat slow news month. 

The most relevant change was the Smart Fortwo ED climbing to #11, with its (slightly) larger sibling, the Forfour ED, jumping three positions, to #22, Thanks to a record 187 deliveries.

Speaking of recently landed models, the much antecipated Kia Niro PHEV went up to #23, while two veterans going for retirement soon are slowly dropping in the table, with the Nissan Leaf down two positions to #19, and the Mercedes B250e dropped three positions to #25.

In the manufacturers ranking, BMW (21%) is in the lead, with Volkswagen (15%) in Second Place, all while Mercedes (11%, down 1%) and Audi (10%, down 1%) run for the last place in the podium.

Regarding the BEV/PHEV share, plug-in hybrids were the most sold in November, although with just 52% share, while growth of BEVs is at 144%, with PHEVs growing at 143%, so one can say that both Technologies are evenly balanced, a rare thing in presente times.

A final mention to the DHL Streetscooter Work van, which registered 347 units in November, pulling the 2017 tally to 3.779 units, which would place it in Third, if it were to join the passenger cars ranking.

Pl	Germany	Nov.	YTD	%	'16 Pl
1 2	Audi A3 e-Tron Renault Zoe	270 235	4.209 4.021	9 8	4 2
3 4	BMW i3 BMW 225xe Active Tour.	438 341	3.757 3.307	8 7	1 10
5 6	Kia Soul EV Volkswagen e-Golf	277 601	2.637 2.604	6 5	7  12
7	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	197	2.121	4	6
8	Tesla Model S	205	2.028	4	5
9 10 11	Volkswagen Passat GTE Mercedes GLC350e Smart Fortwo ED	314 410 621	1.943 1.867 1.835	4 4 4	9 23 35
12 13	Volkswagen Golf GTE Mercedes C350e e)	275 67	1.728 1.167	4 2	8 15
14 15 16 17	Tesla Model X BMW 530e Volkswagen e-Up! Por. Panamera PHEV	56 123 114 124	1.013 986 970 840	2 2 2 2	19 N/A 17 30 11
18	Mercedes E350e	80	816	2	32
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30	Nissan Leaf Hyundai Ioniq Electric Audi Q7 e-Tron Smart Forfour ED Kia Niro PHEV BMW 330e Mercedes B250e Volvo XC90 T8 Volvo V60 Plug-In Mini Countryman PHEV Mercedes GLE500e BMW 740e Others	54 225 44 187 171 67 7 62 61 80 17 35 532	790 789 607 598 554 525 522 502 465 396 301 293 3.262	2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7	30 36 13 N/A N/A 20 18 13 25 N/A 24 27
	TOTAL	6.290	47.453	100

Source: kba.de

Plug-ins and Regular Hybrids

Pl	Model	Nov. Sales
1	Toyota Yaris Hybrid	1.173
2	Toyota Auris Hybrid	751
3	Smart Fortwo ED	621
4	Volkswagen e-Golf	601
5	Toyota C-HR Hybrid	549

As plug-ins reach new heights, regular hybrids are now feeling the heat and being reached by PEVs, in a class that used to be completely owned by Toyota, with the Yaris, Auris Hybrids chronically in the top two positions, two BEVs broke in to the Top 5, with the Smart Fortwo ED even reaching a podium position, in Third.

If the leader Toyota Yaris Hybrid still seems unattainable, the Auris Second position could fall next month to either of the BEVs...

Tesla Model S & Others

Pl	Model	Nov. Sales
1	Audi A8	784
2	Mercedes S-Class	772
3	Porsche Panamera	391
4	BMW 7-Series	375
5 6	BMW 6-Series Tesla Model S	248 205

As the Tesla Sports Sedan reaches historic high levels, it is time to see if it can make a dent on the German flagship models, if the top two positions seem out of range, the remaining places could be reached in peak month, will it be already this December? 

But back to November, the Model S from Tesla was Sixth, with 205 units, a stark increase over the 84 deliveries of November '16.