Europe Full Year 2012

Renault Kangoo ZE

With most data in, it's now possible to make an Plug-In models ranking for Europe, at 43.543 units sold, if it were to be considered as a sole market, it would be the second largest in the world, just behind the US.

Regarding 2011, a lot has changed, beginning with last year's leader, the Mitsubishi I-Miev, taking a dive to #8 and two newcomers winning the gold and silver medals, with the Renault Twizy achieving the highest place in the ranking and the Opel Ampera having the runner-up spot.

In third was the Renault Kangoo ZE, followed closely by the Nissan Leaf, which is in comeback mode, winning the #1 spot in the last three months of the year.

Another good performance was the Toyota Prius Plug-In, landing at #5. On the other hand, the french cousins of the I-Miev were also down, with the Citröen C-Zero in #6 and the Peugeot iOn at #7, but the three counted together still make a respectable 18% share.

Peugeot iOn, one of the french cousins of the Mitsu I-Miev

Diversity is a characteristic of the european market, with several models closely together in the top and the #1 having just 21% share.

Plug In Hybrids share rose to 25%, with the Opel Ampera comfortably ahead of the Prius Plug-In, but the japanese has been closing the distance on the Opel in the last months, maybe this year we'll see a surprise here...

Pl	Europe	Dec	YTD	%
1	Renault Twizy	288	9.013	21
2	Opel Ampera	362	6.631	15
3	Renault Kangoo ZE	381	5.667	13
4	Nissan Leaf	415	5.275	12
5	Toyota Prius Plug-In	273	3.496	8
6	Citröen C-Zero	123	3.090	7
7	Peugeot iOn	120	3.069	7
8	Mitsubishi I-Miev	72	1.559	4
9	Bolloré Blue Car	0	1.543	4
10	Renault Fluence ZE	70	1.407	3
11	Chevrolet Volt	32	609	1
12	Smart Fortwo ED	48	567	1
13	Mia Electric	48	495	1
14	Fisker Karma	5	247	1
15	Tesla Roadster	3	215	1

UK Full Year 2012

2013 Nissan Leaf. Finally some nice alloys!

A bit late in the party, here's the full year sales of the UK electric market, which tripled sales regarding 2011. While that year the Nissan Leaf easily took the best seller crown, in 2012 the distance was shorter and the last months of the year both the Prius Plug-In and the Vauxhall Ampera were head to head against the Leaf, earning them respectively  the #2 and #3 spots.

Even if it didn't made such an impact as it did in other markets, maybe the british weather had something to do with it, the Renault Twizy reached a still respectable #4.

Further down the ranking, notice the growth of the Kangoo ZE from 33 units sold in '11 to 234, just enough to keep it in 6th place and the first unit sold on the Renault Zoe, a car that the french brand has high hopes to achieve the top spot in the brands ranking this year, currently it is second at 20% share, behind Nissan with 24%.

Pl	UK	2012	%	2011	%	Pl
1	Nissan Leaf	699	24	635	58	1
2	Toyota Prius Plug-In	470	16	N/A
3	Vauxhall Ampera	455	16	4	0	7
4	Renault Twizy	292	10	N/A
5	Peugeot iOn	251	9	124	11	3
6	Renault Kangoo ZE	234	8	33	3	6
7	BMW Active E	160	5	N/A
8	Citröen C-Zero	110	4	46	4	5
9	Mitsubishi I-Miev	107	4	125	11	2
10	Chevrolet Volt	67	2	N/A
11	Renault Fluence ZE	67	2	N/A
12	Smart Fortwo ED	13	0	120	11	4
13	Renault Zoe	1	0	N/A
	TOTAL	2.926	100	1.087	100

Source: SMMT; BSCB

Markets Roundup Full Year 2012

Fisker Karma in Monaco

With most of 2012 data in, it's time for a roundup on some EV markets:

- The three countries with highest EV share are Norway (No surprises here) with 3,09%, followed by Estonia (Thanks to Mitsubishi) at 2,35% and finally in third there's the Netherlands with 0,98%;

- The Renault Twizy was #1 in eight countries, hitting a sweet spot in Central and Southern Europe;

- Renault sold some 600 units of the Fluence ZE in Israel, included in the Better Place battery swapping project and at 0,37% share it was not a bad start, but the question is if in 2013 they will resist the black hole that is becoming the Better Place deal;

- Nissan has sold 89 units of the Nissan Leaf in Hong Kong, meaning that Nissan sold more Leaf's there than in the whole of China;

- Where else in the world other than Monaco would the Fisker Karma be a best seller? That's right, the Cadillac Escalade of the  Plug-In market was the second best selling electric vehicle in Monaco, just behind the Renault Twizy. With this in mind, i'm assuming that Tesla will be the best seller this year;

- As proof that the EV market is a fast changing market, Finland had three different leaders in the last three years, starting with the Think City in 2010, followed in '11 by the Citröen C-Zero and the Nissan Leaf last year;

- The I-Miev family has a thing for finding new markets for electric cars and losing them for others in the following years, for example the Mitsubishi I-Miev started the EV market in 2009 in it's home market, being the best selling electric model that year and in 2010, before losing the crown to the Leaf in 2011.  The same thing happened in Germany (#1 in 2010 and 2011, #3 in 2012), Spain (#1 in 2011, #9 in 2012), Switzerland (#1 in 2010 and 2011, #4 in 2012), Monaco (#1 in 2011, #6 in 2012) and Ireland (#1 in 2010, #4 in 2011 and 2012). In 2012 the I-Miev family started to sell cars in new markets like  the Czech Republic (78 units), Iceland (9), Poland (13) and Colombia (28). It remains to be seen in 2013 how many of these will still crown a I-Miev member as best seller...

Portugal Full Year 2012

Smart Fortwo ED

While other markets see their EV numbers double or triple their sales, Portugal saw a 24% drop to 161 units, making it the only market where EV sales were down, this is thanks to the end of the 5.000€ fiscal benefit and the economic crisis that has been ravaging the country.

As in other southern european countries, the Renault Twizy won the #1 spot, succeeding to the Nissan Leaf, which dropped to #3 with just 15 cars sold, down from 101 in 2011.

Second place was for the Smart Fortwo ED, the best ranking in the world for the small two seater and just one of two models to grow sales from last year (The other was the Kangoo ZE), from 14 to 19 units.

Portugal	2012	%
Renault Twizy	71	44
Smart Fortwo ED	19	12
Nissan Leaf	15	9
Renault Kangoo ZE	13	8
Opel Ampera	12	7
Renault Fluence ZE	11	7
Mitsubishi I-Miev	9	6
Peugeot iOn	6	4
Citröen C-Zero	5	3
TOTAL	161	100

Source: Auto Hoje; Manufacturers

My 2013 EV Markets Preview

After making my predictions over the general trends in the EV market and the models that could be gamechangers, and updating it with the latest Roewe and Cadillac offerings, now it's time to preview the behavior of the major markets and which countries could be the surprises of the year:

USA - There's a lot going on here, if we count the same level of sales from the usual suspects (Volt, Prius, Leaf...) at 55K, i'm predicting some extra 15K from the C-Max, 6K from the Fusion and 12K from Tesla. Add that to 3K from other new launches (Accord, Cadillac ELR...) and we easily have more than 90.000 sales in 2013, so i'm counting the US EV market to reach some 90 to 110K units;

Japan - Probably reaching some 23.000 units in 2012, up from 18K in the year before, 2013 will see the arrival of the Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-In Hybrid that might add some 6K sales to a faily stable market, although the I-Miev should struggle to keep sales at their '12 level. So, adding 6 to the current 23K, we have  around 29.000 units for the japanese EV market;

France - The sales level of the french market will depend on the impact of the Renault Zoe and how much will it steal from the current players in the market. So, if assuming that the rest of the market stays stable at 12K and the Zoe collects between 2K to 4K units sold, we have a moderate growth to 14-16.000 EV's;  

Germany - Another market where things could get interesting, although sales will only takeoff in the 4Q after the arrival of the german offerings. Until then sales will grow modestly, with the Zoe animating the market. At some expected 7K sales from foreign brands and adding 2.5K units from the german newcomers (BMW i3, VW e-Up! or Mercedes B-class ED), we'll be looking at around 10.000 units, a good prologue year before the real departure of the german EV market in 2014;

Netherlands - One of the markets where EV's are most successful and where the Opel Ampera is climbing the overall ranking, it's to expect that both the Ampera and the Prius Plug-In will keep on growing their sales, adding 1.000 units each, just like the Tesla Model S, an expected hit here. If the other models on the market also grow another 1.000 cars, we are looking at 9.000 sales, a good result that could keep this market on the forefront of the Plug-In Evolution.

Norway - With a great 3% of the general market, this scandinavian country is considered the epicenter of the electric revolution, thanks in big part to the success of the Nissan Leaf, now a usual name in the best selling rankings. And this year, another pure electric is expected to make a splash here, Norway is just behind the US in orders of Tesla's Model S, so expect it to go from 1.500 to 3.000 cars sold here. Add these to another 1.000 from the successful Prius Plug-In and we have between 7 to 8.500 sales. If the top limit is reached, we'll be talking about a 6% EV share! 

As possible surprises this year, China certainly promises to be one of them, it ended 2012 beating  the alltime record at 848 units and this year it is expected to be flooded with new models (Venucia e30, Springo, BYD Qin...), so it won't be difficult to see the chinese market EV jump from 3.000 to 10.000 sales. Australia is another market expected to grow exponentially thanks to the Holden Volt introduction, sales should grow from a measly 253 sold last year to some 2.000 units, if not more.

All in all, the world EV market will likely grow to some 200.000 units this year, almost doubling sales from the year before. And you the viewers, what do you think?

France Full Year 2012

Renault Zoe

Despite a terrible December, when sales were down from 1.012 units in November to just 586, 2012 was a great year for EV's in France, with sales more than tripling and reaching 11.447 vehicles, keeping the french market as the third largest in the world.

Models-wise, the Renault Kangoo ZE kept the best seller crown it had earned in 2011, but the great performance of the year belonged to the Renault Twizy, landing in #2 with a great 19% share. On the other hand, the biggest loser also came from Renault, with the Fluence ZE down 26% and dropping 4 places to #9. It looks like the french sedan didn't convinced cab fleet companies...

In third comes the Bolloré Blue Car, a car used by the Autolib carsharing company, an example of the importance of fleets in this market.

Further down, notice the best-selling Plug-In Hybrid, the Toyota Prius at #7 and 4th in December, promising a successful 2013 for Toyota.

Finally, in #12 there's the "Next Big Thing" in the french market, the Renault Zoe, hoping Renault that it can complete with it the Kangoo and Twizy top spots, performing for the french carmaker a 1-2-3 podium this year.

France	Dec	2012	%
Renault Kangoo ZE	168	2.869	25
Renault Twizy	96	2.232	19
Bolloré Blue Car		1.543	13
Peugeot iOn	66	1.429	12
Citröen C-Zero	13	1.335	12
Nissan Leaf	34	524	5
Toyota Prius Plug-In	60	413	4
Mia Electric	47	389	3
Renault Fluence ZE		295	3
Opel Ampera	28	190	2
Smart Fortwo ED	35	66	1
Renault Zoe	36	48	0
Chevrolet Volt	1	34	0
Mitsubishi I-Miev		24	0
Fisker Karma	2	21	0
VW Golf Blue-e-motion		15	0
Tesla Roadster		10	0
BMW Active E		10	0
TOTAL	586	11.447	100

Source: automobile-propre.com

Austria Full Year 2012 (Updated)

2011 Mercedes-Benz A-Class E-Cell

The austrian EV market has nearly doubled their sales to 1.024 units, a fairly respectable number given the overall dimension of the local car market, with the Renault Twizy winning the pole position with 271 units, ahead of last years winner, the Citröen C-Zero, which sold 198 cars in 2012, 40 less than in the previous year.

Unlike other markets, where a single model represents 50% or more of the market, here it's more fragmented, with the #1 having just 26% share. But despite that, Renault as a brand achieves a comfortable 57% share, thanks to the good performance of their models (Twizy #1, Kangoo #3 and Fluence #4). With this successful background, things look good for the introduction of the Renault Zoe in Austria.

Now two curious aspects of the austrian market:

First, the 13 units sold of the Mercedes A-Class E-Cell, along with the dozens sold in the previous year indicates Austria as potential hit market for the electrification effort to be made by Mercedes this year;

Second, the best selling Plug-In Hybrid car was...The Fisker Karma. With a mammoth 12 units sold. Even if there's not available data about the Prius Plug-In sales, it's still amazing that the Karma outsold the Ampera/Volt sales counted together. And it also demonstrates that Plug-In Hybrids still have a long way to go in Austria...

Austria	Dec	2012	%
Renault Twizy	12	271	21
Citröen C-Zero	1	198	15
Renault Kangoo ZE	1	185	15
Opel Ampera Renault Fluence ZE	12	165 126	14 11
Mitsubishi I-Miev	20	69	7
Nissan Leaf	5	64	6
Peugeot iOn		46	4
Chevrolet Volt Mercedes A E-Cell		15 13	1 1
Fisker Karma		12	1
Smart Fortwo ED		12	1
Opel Ampera	5	10	1
Tesla Roadster		8	1
Think City	3	8	1
Chevrolet Volt	1	1	0
Volvo C30 Electric		1	0
Toyota Prius Plug-In (a)		0	0
TOTAL	60	1.193	100

(a) - Data not available


Source: automotive.co.at