Saturday, April 4, 2015

USA March 2015

Surprise of the Month

"What tha...FIAT?!?" Edition

More than 10.000 plug-ins were sold in the US last month, the first time that we see five-digit numbers in the first quarter, although the growth rate is a meager 12% improvement over the same month last year, confirming that the US EV market is:

a) Plateauing, derived from falling gas prices;

b) Waiting for new models, coming in the second half of the year (Volt II, Model X, next Prius Plug-in, etc).

But while these highly anticipated models are a few months away, there is plenty of animation with the current players, starting with Fiat, delivering what it could sound like an April fool's prank: 1.310 units were delivered last month, far higher from the hundred-something we got used to, is FCA finally realizing the tremendous potential of the electric version of its cute 500? I will only believe it when they start selling it outside the current markets (California and Oregon).

If it weren't the outlandish result of the 500e, the head title would be dedicated to the Model S, after losing the last two monthly Best Seller trophies to the Leaf by less than 100 units, in March Tesla hit the accelerator pedal and delivered some 2.400 units, stealing at the same time the YTD leadership from the japanese car, which has been consistently selling less than last year.

Behind the podium seats, the referred 500e surged to #7, even surpassing the Prius Plug-in, that despite a small spike in sales (473 sales, best result of the year), continues to drift slowly down the ranking.

In the Caddie ELR vs BMW i8 private duel, the german car continues to impress, selling 143 units in March and surpassing the GM offer in the YTD chart, with the new Cadillac boss recently announcing the end of the ELR, it looks that BMW will have the sports-car segment all for itself, at least until a certain Audi R8 e-Tron shows up...

Final references on the manufacturers ranking, there's a new Number One, Tesla is ahead (20% Share), followed closely by Nissan (18%) and Ford (17%), while the PHEV share of the market as its smallest expression ever, with only 35%. The difference that a retiring Volt does, eh?

PlUSAMarchYTD%
1Tesla Model S e)2.4004.51120
2Nissan Leaf1.8174.08518
3BMW i39222.68112
4Chevrolet Volt6391.8748
5Ford Fusion Energi8371.8668
6Ford C-Max Energi7151.6087
7Fiat 500e e)1.3101.5467
8Toyota Prius Plug-In4731.2716
9Volkswagen e-Golf1955062
10Mercedes B-Class ED1454942
11Ford Focus Electric1403702
12
13
14
15
Chevrolet Spark EV
BMW i8
Smart Fortwo ED
Cadillac ELR
151
143
103
92
356
341
326
311
2
1
1
1
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
Porsche Cayenne Plug-In
Kia Soul EV
P. Panamera Plug-In
Porsche 918
Honda Accord Plug-In
Mitsubishi I-Miev
Toyota RAV4 EV
Honda Fit EV
72
63
44
10
5
10
4
1
261
180
145
58
45
15
13
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
0

TOTAL10.29122.864100




Source: insideevs.com

8 comments:

  1. Hey, Jose. Sorry for the delay but at least I'm not as incompetent as the person in control of beepbeep.ie. So that means I have a few issues here to just draw out.

    Again, it insists that there are 14 PHEV Mercedes-Benz E-Classes.
    I could only find 8 of the supposedly 11 'Unknown' PHEVs sold.
    There are 3 e-Golf registered, but two are seen as diesels that emit over 150g/km...

    So, to the numbers from Ireland

    In total, 19035 were sold. beepbeep.ie says there were 85 EVs, 11 'Unknown' and 14 PHEVs.

    I found 87 EVs (inc one EV van) and 8 'Unknown PHEVs'.

    So then...
    78 - Nissan LEAF
    7 - Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV
    4 - Renault Zoë
    3 - VW e-Golf
    1 - BMW i3
    1 - Nissan e-NV200
    1 - Porsche Cayenne S E-Hybrid

    Of note, the Mitsui Outlander PHEV made 30% of Outlander sales. The Cayenne S E-Hybrid also made 30% of Cayenne sales but 10% of all of Porsche's sales!

    Other than that, noting mad like the e-Up! coming out of nowhere to be a sales leader or whatever happened with the 50e in the US.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is only 0,5% market share... I thought ireland is already higher.

      Delete
    2. Roughly, that's where we are but it's about twice as much compared to this time last year (around 0.20%). When the market slowed down to a crawl as it does after around August, Ireland (in 2014) had months where EV share was over 0.6% and even 1%, surpassing hybrids, all achieved by small, single digit units. For months like those, we might be seeing months this year nearing 2%. It was those kind of months that brought the Irish EV share to 0.26% if I remember properly. I would believe we would score in the area of 0.6% when the year is done.

      Delete
  2. Akiharu MuraseApril 05, 2015

    Please update Canada March 2015 and Netherlands March 2015.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The 500e seemed to be on lease for 85$/month. That is really low and shows how mich EV could dell if they weren't so exppensive.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Any numbers from UK yet? No data so far in 2015...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nope, only the ones from SMMT (Total numbers for BEV and PHEV)

      Delete