Finland August 2017

Scandinavian Classic, now with a Plug in it

Record Month

Finland has become one of my favorite markets to report, because news are always good, and August confirmed the trend, with a total of 258 EV's sold, a new record, with sales up 211% regarding the same month last year, with YTD numbers doubling the 2016 result, with the EV Share up again to a record 2,1%.

Looking at the models ranking, the Mercedes GLC350e is the unchallenged ruler, rising from #15 in 2016 to an undisputed leadership (24% share, 15% above the runner-up), with 352 units.

But the runner-up place is pretty much up for grab, with the VW Passat GTE running to keep several players behind it, like the #3 Audi Q7 e-Tron (12 units behind), the #4 Volvo XC90 PHEV (-26 units), or even the #5 BMW 530e, that with a record 34 units in August, it is by far the year Rookie of the Year, and was last month's runner-up model, if the German midsizer continues at this pace, he will most likely win this year Silver Medal.

Other models had good performances in August, with the Porsche Panamera PHEV (22 deliveries, new pb) jumping to #12, while the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV delivered 18 units, its best result in over three years.

Looking at the manufacturers ranking, Mercedes (27%) is in the lead, followed by BMW (26%) in Second, with Volkswagen in Third Place, with 12% share.

Pl	Finland	Aug.	YTD '17	%	Pl '16
1 2 3 4	Mercedes GLC350e Volkswagen Passat GTE Audi Q7 e-Tron Volvo XC90 T8	37 16 7 13	352 130 118 104	24 9 8 7	15 2 9 1
5	BMW 530e	34	100	7	N/A
6 6	BMW 330e Tesla Model S	16 5	90 90	6 6	3 5
8	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	18	84	6	6
9 10 11 12 12 14	BMW 225xe Active Tourer Tesla Model X Nissan Leaf BMW X5 40e Porsche Panamera PHEV Renault Zoe	9 2 7 3 22 11	68 65 61 48 48 41	5 4 4 3 3 3	7 14 7 4 N/A N/A
14	BMW i3	2	41	3	15
16 17 18 18 20 20	Hyundai Ioniq Electric Mercedes E350e Volkswagen Golf GTE Porsche Cayenne PHEV Kia Optima PHEV Volvo S/V90 PHEV Others	5 1 9 1 6 10 23	39 36 32 32 30 30 115	3 2 2 2 2 2 7
	TOTAL	258	1.749	100

Source: trafi.fi

Romania August 2017

BMW i3 Shines 

If temperatures across Romania are starting to fall, the local EV market is hot as ever, with August signaling a year best(!) for plug-ins, with 43 units, up 153%, pulling the 2017 sales to 144 units, up 87% YoY. True, the starting base is small, but growth is always good, right?

With the EV Share at a record 0.25%, plug-ins in Romania are starting to move the needle, will we see it move in a more significant way next year?

If last year BMW and Mercedes were the big players, with both counting 69% of last year sales, in 2017 the domination has eroded a bit (They have 61% of the market), but the podium still belongs to them, with the BMW i3 shining in August, thanks to 14 deliveries (Year best), and reaching the leadership, tied with the Mercedes B250e. 

Romania is the only market where the Mercedes BEV is leading the ranking and also where it places two models in the podium, as the GLC350e joins the B250e, in Third. Kudos for the local Mercedes importer. 

In a market strongly driven by SUV's, where five of the Top 10 belong to that category, it is interesting to see that BEVs are now outselling PHEVs, with 75 units vs 69, when in 2016 plug-in hybrids trounced all-electrics by 93 to 69.

Three models contributed to this rise, with the #2 Mercedes B250e, #4 Renault Zoe and #6 VW e-Golf all climbing in the ranking. 

In the manufacturers ranking, Mercedes and BMW are the only two relevant brands, with the first winning over the current Title bearer by 32% vs 27% share. The distant Third Placed is Renault, with 10%.

Pl	Romania	Aug.	2017	%	Pl '16
1	BMW i3	14	19	13	1
1 3	Mercedes B250e Mercedes GLC350e	4 1	19 18	13 13	14 8
4	Renault Zoe	13	15	10	8
5	BMW X5 40e		10	7	2
6	Volkswagen e-Golf		9	6	N/A
7 7 9 10 10 10 13 13 13 13 17 17	Audi Q7 e-Tron Mercedes GLE500e Volvo XC90 T8 Tesla Model X BMW 225xe Active Tourer BMW 740e Porsche Panamera PHEV Porsche Cayenne Plug-In Smart Fortwo ED Volkswagen e-Up! Mini Countryman PHEV Tesla Model S Others	2 1 1 1 3 1 2	8 8 5 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 5	6 6 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 3	N/A 3 6 8 17 12 N/A 14 N/A N/A N/A 14 N/A
	TOTAL	43	144	100

Source: http://www.drpciv..ro/

Netherlands August 2017

Tesla does a 1-3 podium

Looking at August results, numbers dropped 27% YoY, to 696 units, with the Tesla Model S winning another Best Seller award, with 157 deliveries (Up 22% YoY), with the Hyundai Ioniq Electric staying in Second Place, with 107 units (New pb), while the Tesla Model X was Third, with 99 deliveries, followed by the Renault Zoe and VW e-Golf. 

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Tesla Model S	157
2	Hyundai Ioniq Electric	107
3	Tesla Model X	99
4	Renault Zoe	70
5	Volkswagen e-Golf	58

Looking at the YTD ranking, the Hyundai Ioniq Electric recovered the Third Place from the BMW i3, with the Korean now becoming the Best Selling regular-priced (<40.000 €) BEV, ahead of the aforementioned BMW i3, and the Renault Zoe, 98 units behind. Should be an entertaining race to see...

Another two BEVs are climbing the ranking stairs, with the Rookie of the Year Opel Ampera-e jumping to #12, while the Smart ForFour ED is now #26.

On the Best Selling PHEVs side, the Porsche Panamera PHEV was August Best Seller, with 23 units, allowing to reach #9, now only 25 units behind this year PHEV #1, the Volvo XC90 PHEV (110 units).

In the manufacturers ranking, Tesla is head and shoulders above the competition (32%), while in Second Place we have BMW (13%), with Hyundai now closing the podium, with 12% share (Up 1%), closely followed by Renault (10%).

Pl	Netherlands	Aug.	YTD	%	'16Pl
1 2	Tesla Model S Tesla Model X	157 99	1.025 617	20 12	5 15
3	Hyundai Ioniq Electric	107	602	12	23
4	BMW i3	46	544	11	14
5 6 7 8 9 10 10 12 13 14 14	Renault Zoe Nissan Leaf Volkswagen e-Golf Volvo XC90 PHEV Porsche Panamera PHV Mitsu. Outlander PHEV  Mercedes GLC350e Opel Ampera-e Mercedes B250e  Kia Soul EV  Porsche Cayenne Plug-in	70 27 58 3 23 2 7 27 4 1 3	504 416 266 110 85 75 75 59 55 47 47	10 8 5 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1	17 13 19 3 33 7 31 N/A 20 27 25
16 17 18 19 20 21	Volkswagen Passat GTE BMW 530e Mini Countryman PHEV Volkswagen e-Up! Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia T. Prius Plug-In (Gen I&II)	13 9 1 5 1	44 42 39 38 37 36	1 1 1 1 1 1	1 N/A N/A 24 16 22
22	BMW 225xe Act Tourer	2	28	1	11
23	Citröen C-Zero	1	24	0	38
24	Audi Q7 e-Tron		23	0	6
24 26 27 28	Mercedes C350e  Smart Forfour ED Mercedes E350e Smart Fortwo ED	5 5 3 3	23 21 20 19	0 0 0 0	4 N/A 10 38
29	Volvo S/V90 PHEV	1	18	0	N/A
30	BMW 330e Others	1 12	17 115	0 2	2
	TOTAL	696	5.071	100

       






































Source: RAI Vereniging

Regular Hybrids + Plug-ins Ranking

Pl	Model	Aug. Sales
1	Kia Niro	376
2	Toyota Yaris Hybrid	330
2	Toyota C-HR Hybrid	330
4	Toyota Auris Hybrid	162
5	Tesla Model S	157

If we add regular hybrids to plug-ins, the Kia Niro was the August Best Seller, with 376 units (Now imagine what a BEV Niro could do), with the Toyota trio (Yaris and Auris stalwarts, C-HR rebel kid) always present, while the Tesla Model S is in Fifth, being the only plug-in to regularly feature in this Top 5.

Tesla Model S & Others

Pl	Model	Aug. Sales
1	BMW 5-Series	317
2	Tesla Model S	157
3	Volvo S/V90	136
4	Mercedes E-Class	104
5	Audi A6	40

Looking at the E-Segment/full-size vehicles, the BMW 5-Series recovered the leadership, with the Tesla Model S rising to Second Place.

Considering the upcoming September last-month-of-quarter peak, will we see the Model S outsell the BMW 5-Series? 

Tesla Model X & Others

Pl	Model	Aug. Sales
1	Tesla Model X	99
2	BMW X5	29
3	Volvo XC90	26
4	Jaguar F-Pace	25
5	Range Rover Sport	15

Big SUV's had a big hit with the end of PHEV incentives, to the benefit of the Tesla Model X, which now has the big advantage of being the only model eligible to plug-in incentives, with the American Sports SUV outselling the Second Placed BMW X5 by a 3 to 1 ratio.

Iceland August 2017

Another Record Month in High Flying Iceland

With the market growing four-fold in August and this year market share at a record 10%, the Icelandic plug-in market is now sailing through the mainstream market, with this year sales growing 225%(!) YoY to 1.843 units, after another record month (Fourth in a row!) in August, with 409 registrations.

With the 2017 EV market now above 10% share, it reached for the first time the two digits, being only the second market to do so, after Norway. At this pace, i wouldn't be surprised if the market share reached some 13% by year end.  

At such high market share, this "Second Norway" has plug-ins becoming an important part of the brands sales, as is the case of Mitsubishi (82% of the brand sales), Porsche (71%), Audi (62%) or BMW (59%).

Looking at the models ranking, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is back at the leadership, having registered 152 units last month, a new all-time record for a single model in this market, followed by the Nissan Leaf and Volvo XC90 PHEV (Both with new pb), while the Audi A3 e-Tron climbed to #4, improving substancially on his 2016 standing (#11, with 38 units delivered throughout the whole year).

The Rookie of the Year Renault Zoe continues to impress, standing in #7 and Best Seller of its class (B-Segment/Subcompact), while the BMW 225xe Active Tourer is also improving on its last year performance (#10 now vs #15 then).

In the brands ranking, Mitsubishi (27%) is in the leadership, followed by the #2 Nissan (22%) and #3 Volvo (10%), but with Volkswagen (9%) and BMW (8%) on the lookout for a podium seat.

Pl	Iceland	Aug.	YTD	%	'16Pl
1 2 3 4	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Nissan Leaf Volvo XC90 T8 Audi A3 e-Tron	152 61 38 18	500 369 152 72	27 20 8 4	1 2 5 11
5	Volkswagen Passat GTE	7	65	4	4
6 7 8 9 10 10 12 13 14 15	Volkswagen Golf GTE Renault Zoe Audi Q7 e-Tron Volkswagen e-Golf Mercedes GLC350e BMW 225xe Active Tourer BMW i3 Porsche Cayenne Plug-In Mercedes GLE500e Kia Optima PHEV	12 7 7 11 3 7 10 3 10 12	60 58 46 42 41 41 39 36 35 32	3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2	3 N/A 10 5 12 15 14 12 9 N/A
15 17 17 17	BMW X5 40e Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia BMW 330e Volvo V60 Plug-In	10 6 5 5	32 30 30 30	2 2 2 2	14 13 N/A N/A
20	Kia Soul EV	4	27	1	11
21 22	Mercedes C350e Mercedes B250e	4 4	21 17	1 1	22 24
22 24 25	Hyundai Ioniq Electric Porsche Panamera PHEV Volkswagen e-Up! Others	2 2 1 8	17 11 9 31	1 1 0 2	N/A N/A 18
	TOTAL	409	1.843	100

Regular Hybrids + Plug-ins Ranking

Pl	Model	Aug. Sales
1	Mitsu. Outlander PHEV	152
2	Nissan Leaf	61
3	Toyota Yaris Hybrid	48
4	Volvo XC90 PHEV	38
5	Toyota Auris Hybrid	29

In a market that reached 13% share in August, plug-ins are becoming more and more common among the overall best sellers, despite not having access to the models ranking, like in Norway, the data available allows me to say that in August, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV was the Best Selling Model in Iceland, being possibly the first time a plug-in reached the highest place in the general ranking. And that's not all, the 61 Leaf's were possibly enough for the Japanese hatchback to be Third last month, between the Nissan Qashqai and Kia Sorento ICE models, thus becoming the best selling car that month. 

If we add regular hybrids to plug-ins sales, the high share of these last ones is noticeable, as regular hybrids, are taking a beating, with only two representatives, against three from plug-ins.

In fact, looking at the Top 5 best sellers, we see representatives of each technology, with two PHEVs (#1 Outlander PHEV and #4 Volvo XC90 PHEV), one BEV (#2 Nissan Leaf) and two HEVs (#3 Yaris Hybrid & #5 Auris Hybrid), as plug-ins continue to increase share, expect at some point in the future this Top 5 to be 100% PEV.