Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Portugal April 2019

Will the King Leaf be threatened by the Model 3?


Tesla Model 3 jumps to #2

PEV Sales slowed down their growth to just 9% YoY, with April registering 840 deliveries, but with the overall down (-2% YoY), last month the Plug-in Share ended at 4%, placing the 2019 share at 4,9%.

Last month the Best Selling model was the Mercedes E300e/de (!), a first for the full-size Mercedes, thanks to 95 deliveries, its best result ever in Portugal. 

How this came to be? Besides the popularity of the brand in this market, this model falls just below the incentives cap, so for companies, both this model and its rival BMW 530e (71 units in April, year best), are the best PHEV they can buy and still profit from the generous incentives.

Maybe it would be a good idea to lower the PHEV price cap to access incentives? I doubt these highway-eating monsters do a lot of electric drive..

Moving on, the Nissan Leaf is an isolated #1, with a safe distance over the surging Tesla Model 3, that came out of nowhere to the runner-up spot, displacing the popular Renault Zoe to #3.

Just below the podium, the BMW 530e is watching the Mercedes E300e/de getting closer, while the Hyundai Kona EV is #8, ahead of the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, that in Portugal is in a low #10, far from the success it is experiencing in other European markets.

Interestingly, high end plugins, that fall above the incentives price cap and do not receive significant incentives, are also experiencing surging sales, with the Jaguar i-Pace in #11, its cousin Range Rover Sport PHEV in #14, while both the Model S and X from Tesla find a seat in the Top 20, something rare this year in Europe, and even the Porsche Panamera PHEV sneaked in, at #19.  

It seems plugins are now trendy among the wealthiest in Portugal...

In the manufacturers ranking, there's a new leader, with Nissan now leading the way (23%), followed by the new Second Placed Tesla (16%), while the three times winner ('16, '17, '18) BMW, this year is relegated to the last place of the podium, with 12% share. Will the company-car-friendly BMW 330e change the German brand fortunes?

Outside the medal positions, Renault (9%) is the only close enough to bother the podium bearers.




14 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this, José. I saw that on your chart you named the Kauai with its international name "Kona", as the Kauai is only sold in Portugal for obvious reasons of Portuguese's lang...But what it is interesting is that in this chart: https://elbilstatistikk.no/, we can see that in Norway there is a lot of Kauai being sold there, so I presumed that a lot of Kauai (Kona) sold and registered in Portugal went directly to Norway.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Could be. But i have been seeing a lot of "Kauai EV" here, so i guess only a fraction of them goes to Norway.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 28, 2019

    Why so much hate towards PHEVs? Are they bad for the human health or the fact I can pull in and out of the garage without the need to fire up the ICE and with it, burning any fuel meritless? Oh, and I can do my home-work commute electric-only, yep 20 km!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In Portugal PHEV are bought 95% by companies to save on taxes. It is used as ICE in the daily routine. Were talking of premium PHEV (BMW,Mercedes,...) not entry-level PHEV

      Delete
    2. there was statistics released recently, I think from UK, more than 90% of PHEV drivers don't charge it, so it defeats the purpose, other than take incentive which is wasting public money away from pure BEV's

      Delete
    3. Not really hate, only an observation that these big PHEV are mostly used for cruising Portugal highways at high speed. So, most part of the time they are not using their pure electric capacity but at the contrary they have been bought as fleet cars that are rarely plug, so, so much for justifying their subsides.

      Delete
    4. As Marsusul, said it's not hate, just an observation of facts.

      I think PHEVs, especially those with usable electric range, are useful to cut emissions in the hands of private owners, as they will try to get the most of the electric part of the vehicle, in order to save money.

      The problem are PHEVs as company cars, because companies distribute them to their drivers/users, and these last ones do not have any incentive to use the electric part, hence my idea that incentives for PHEVs should have a lower price cap (45.000€?) than BEVs, as people that drive BMW 5-Series or Mercedes E-Class do a lot more highway than those of a Kia Niro PHEV, profiting less from the "EV" part of their cars.

      Delete
    5. AnonymousMay 30, 2019

      That's interesting, this means BEVs are only bought by people not caring of subsides, free charging plugs, that never cruise at high speed in highways and companies or vehicle fleet managing organisations? Well, I might be seeing different realities then, everytime I see Lease Plan managed cars or Leaf and Zoe being used as on-demand taxi ferries, not to mention Teslas on highways at slow pace, right...

      Delete
    6. You are missing the point. PHEVs are only actually EVs when they are charged often, which is generally *not* the case in fleet usage. BEVs are *always* EVs, no matter the use case.

      Delete
  4. In a few cases the PHEV can be a useful car but generally its more a try of the car industry to keep their combustion engine in the vehicle. People buy a high maintenance car and will regret it in a few years also because the resale value will drop dramatically once BEV's flow more into the market.

    And I agree, it takes momentum away from the sales of BEV's.
    In terms of emission cuts, it would make much more sense to fully focus on converting smaller cars, second cars, small delivery vehicles, everything that can run unproblematically solely on batteries, from ICE into BEV's. Those vehicles that are needed to run longer distances leave them on fuel for a few more years until energy density and prices of batteries are at a level where they outpace ICE cars. Also the supply of cells shows shortages at the moment and for each PHEV you could bring a small BEV on the roads. And for each Etron you could bring 4 city BEV's on the road

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousMay 30, 2019

      Why not then, send a letter to Tesla to re-focus into city cars and leave away nonsenses like the Model S, X, Roadsters and Semi-trucks, by your thinking? Dual criteria?

      written by Looney Tunes

      Delete
    2. What's wrong with semi trucks? They will do more to curb emissions than any private car... (Similar to buses.)

      Delete
    3. Yes, when you look at it from the angle of cutting emissions it would be better to manufacture cars with small to medium size batteries. But thats the task of politics to set the right incentives that more of such cars come into the market.

      Tesla is a company and works under capitalistic rules. Means, its not their task to reduce the NOX emissions in San Francisco, Lisbon or Berlin. Their task is to sell a SEXY product and earn money with it. And if this goes along with environmental requirements that we will have to implement, even better

      Delete
    4. It should be noted that since smaller batteries need replacements more often, the actual difference in lifetime emissions pretty much boils down only to weight savings -- and thus isn't really all that large.

      Delete