Europe June 2016

The Renault Zoe is now in the driver's seat

Renault Zoe Climbs to Number One 

The European EV market had more than 17.000 registrations last month, representing a 1% increase over June 2015, the slowdown in these last couple of months is due to the fiscal changes in Germany. Nevertheless, the market is set to surpass the 200.000 units by year end, possibly even reaching 250.000 units. Let's look at the Monthly Ranking:

#1 Renault Zoe – Despite dropping 3% YoY to 2.481 units, the French hatchback is finally fulfilling expectations, with Renault actively selling the car, resulting in the Zoe reaching the monthly leadership for the third time this year. With the French auto market going into holiday-season mode for the next two months, Germany, Zoe’s second largest market, will have to make up for the loss. Good thing then that a tidal wave of sales is expected there, now that the incentives just kicked in…   

#2 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV – The Japanese SUV sales have dropped 12% YoY, to 1.757 units, ending the month in Second. Although growing in important markets, like Norway or Sweden, Mitsubishi hasn’t found a way to replace the average 300-400 units/month it had last year in the Dutch market and to stop the sales slowdown in the UK.

#3 Nissan Leaf – Sales of the Japanese hatch were up 7% in May, to 1.572 units, not that far from the Outlander PHEV, and it has to thank to France and Norway for that, where it sells more than half of its volume. The question is: Can it keep up? The Leaf is getting a bit old now, and 250 kms range are not enough to fight longer range BEV’s (New BMW i3, 2017 Chevrolet Bolt Opel Ampera-e…) coming soon, so unless something happens, the most common EV in the world will have a hard time in Europe in the next year or so.

#4 Tesla Model S – The (not so) surprise of the month, Tesla’s Sports-Sedan-that’s-actually-a-Liftback offered the usual last month of the quarter peak performance, reaching #4, with 1.484 units, a somewhat disappointing result, considering that in the last sales peak (March ’16), it had 2.380 units and in June 2015, 2.104 deliveries. Is the Model S becoming passé, now that the Model X is arriving to European shores?

#5 VW Passat GTE – Thanks to Sweden and Norway, where, combined, it sold 686 units, Volkswagen’s midsize offering reached the Fifth Position in June, with 1.117 units, its best score this year. With the right mix of space, practicality, low carbon emissions and power, the Passat GTE is destined for success as company car for middle managers across Europe, something that could only be potentiated by the new incentives in Germany. Will we see it reach the podium this summer?

YTD Ranking

Looking at the YTD ranking, the Renault Zoe has finally risen to the leadership, dropping the Outlander PHEV to the Second Position, but not all are bad news for the Japanese SUV, despite the #3 Nissan Leaf being only 249 units behind, there are no short term prospects for the Nissan hatch to outrun it, unless, of course, there is some unexpected wizardry coming from Nissan in the final months of the year… (wink, wink) 

If the podium positions are open to discussion, the apparent race for #6 will no longer exist in the coming months, with BMW presumably delivering a tsunami of i3’s soon, enough to recover the #6 and even put pressure on the underperforming #5 VW Golf GTE, affected by its Passat GTE sibling success.

While the revised i3 hasn't yet arrived, BMW has already its hands full with their most recent PHEV’s. The 330e has risen to #13, thanks to 497 units sold in June, while the 225xe Active Tourer joined the Top 20 in #14, thanks to a personal record of 484 units, expect these two to continue rising in the ranking it the second half of the year.

For some models to climb, others have to come down and we are giving a few lines on them. If regarding 2015, the Volvo V60 Plug-in dropping eight places to #17, falls into the logic of things, given the increase of competition (BMW 330e, Mercedes C350e, VW Passat GTE…), with more or less the same going for the six positions drop of the #10 VW e-Golf (Nissan Leaf 30 kWh, upcoming Tesla Model 3, confusingly named Opel Ampera-e…), the four positions drop of the #11 Audi A3 e-Tron is harder to understand, as it hasn’t got any direct new rival this year.

Looking at the manufacturers ranking, the trophy bearer Volkswagen (16%), has lost some advantage over Renault (15%, up 1%), while the increasingly menacing BMW (13%) has risen to Third, dropping Nissan (12%, down 1%) to Fourth.

With the 33 kWh BMW i3 coming soon, expect the Bavarian brand to continue winning market share and even possibly becoming the Best Selling plug-in automaker in Europe.

Article also published on CleanTechnica and EV Obsession.

Pl	Europe	June	2016	%	'15Pl
1	Renault Zoe	2.418	11.872	12	2
2	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	1.757	11.176	11	1
3	Nissan Leaf	1.572	10.927	11	5
4	Tesla Model S	1.484	6.834	7	4
5	Volkswagen Golf GTE	724	5.694	6	3
6	Volvo XC90 T8	768	4.995	5	18
7	BMW i3	573	4.886	5	6
8	Volkswagen Passat GTE	1.117	4.635	5	12
9 10 11	Mercedes C350e Volkswagen e-Golf Audi A3 e-Tron	808 516 451	4.305 3.904 3.360	4 4 3	11 4 7
12 13 14	BMW X5 40e BMW 330e BMW 225xe Active Tourer	415 497 484	2.572 2.333 2.012	3 2 2	22 37 32
15	Renault Kangoo ZE	413	1.950	2	13
16	Kia Soul EV	385	1.888	2	10
17	Volvo V60 Plug-In	273	1.614	2	9
18 19 20	Mercedes B250e Porsche Cayenne Plug-In Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia	304 222 268	1.587 1.439 1.416	2 1 1	17 14 15
	TOTAL	17.259	98.788