Monday, March 30, 2020

Europe February 2020 (Updated)

Todos os preços do novo Renault Zoe

Renault Zoe leader in hot market (for now) 


The European passenger plug-in market registered over 69,000 registrations in February (+111%), with the 2020 plugin market growing 117%, to some 144,000 units, a great performance that should help to weaken the effect of the upcoming coronavirus months, where sales will most likely fall abruptly throughout the continent.

It will be curious to know, though, when it come to plugin share, what will happen, will PEVs weather the storm by gaining significant share, and go north of 10% share? Discuss. 

In February, despite a falling (-7% YoY) overall market, PHEVs continue on fire (+153% YoY), but all-electrics (+88%) are not much behind too, with these last ones being responsible for 57% of all plugin sales last month (55% YTD), while the BEV share climbed to 3.7%, and adding PHEVs to the tally, the share climbs to 6.5%, placing the 2020 PEV share at 6.5% (3.6% for BEVs alone), well above the 3.6% result of 2019.

The big news in February continues to be the strong start of the Renault Zoe, that scored 6,439 registrations, more than doubling last year result in the same month, while the veteran VW e-Golf scored a record performance (3,770 units) for the second month in a row(!), securing the runner-up spot, while the Tesla Model 3, after a weak January, returned to its usual self, reaching the 3rd spot last month, with 3,589 units, as it prepares to go after the Second spot in March.

Interestingly, this month we have a 100% BEV Top 5, which i believe will start to be a common feature, throughout the year...



Looking at the February Top 5 Models:



#1 Renault Zoe – The 6,439 deliveries of February not only allowed it to beat the competition by a sizeable margin, but also to double registrations, regarding last year, possibly providing the French hatchback enough distance to sustain the expected Model 3 surge in March, and continue leading the European ranking during the Corona months. As for individual market performances, the French hatchback continues as popular as ever in its domestic market (3,076 units), and in Germany (1,352 units), with Italy (385) and Spain (317) helping along to the Renault nameplate success.


#2 VW e-Golf – The evergreen German model hit a record 3,770 units last month, its second in a row(!), an amazing result for a model that was supposed to be in sunset-mode, and has its sucessor ramping up production in the Zwickau factory. It seems VW is going all in into plugins (well, with the CO2 rules now in place, it has to), milking everything it can from its current best selling electric model. Regarding February performances, the Volkswagen EV main markets were Germany (1,475), Netherlands (485), Norway (755) and the UK (250).


#3 Tesla Model 3 – Preparing the March deliveries peak, the posterchild for electromobility had its expected mid-quarter ramp up month, with 3,589 deliveries, with the sports sedan getting ready to go after the leadership in the coming months. Back at February, looking at individual markets, the midsize model was mainly delivered in France (1,025 units), Germany (610), and the UK (450).  


#4 Peugeot 208 EV – The French hatchback hit 3,478 units last month, down some 400 units regarding January, which was probably artificially inflated by the new CO2 rules. Considering that its career is barely starting, it is early to know the actual demand limits of the Peugeot EV, and with the upcoming months also watching a Coronavirus-related sales drought, we won't know it anywhere soon. Last month, its home market (2,495 units) pulled out the heavy lifting, but it wasn’t just France doing all the hard work, as Italy (287) and Spain (227) also helped the Peugeot EV to reach the runner up spot.



#5 Nissan Leaf – The Japanese model hit 2,570 units last month, down just 5%. It seems the recent discounts are indeed helping to move metal, with the Nissan EV profiting from the current lack of strong competition in the compact class, at least until a certain VW ID.3 lands…But back at February performances, the Japanese EV main markets were Norway (484 deliveries), France (283), Germany (283), and the UK (400).

Editor Note: Dear readers, at the time of publishing, i had forgotten to update the country performances of each of the Top 5 Best Sellers, i am sorry for the mistake and for any inconvenience that may have caused.  


Resultado de imagem para jaguar i-pace vs audi e-tron

Looking at the 2020 ranking, if the podium positions remained stable (for now), the main news was the Tesla Model 3 jumping 8 spots, to 6th, but it wasn't the only pure EV rising, as the Audi e-Tron was up to #7, confirming its Best Selling Luxury PEV status, while the Hyundai Kona EV and BMW i3 also had reasons to smile, with Korean crossover climbing to #8 and the German hatchback, to #12 (which is still well below the 5th spot of 2019). 

On the second half of the table, there were plenty of changes, the most relevant being the three new faces, with the Volvo S/V60 PHEV twins jumping to #15, thanks to 1,885 units, the nameplate's best score since 2015, while the Kia Niro PHEV returned to the ranking, in #18, thanks to 1,238 units, a new record for the PHEV crossover. In fact, Kia had a great month, with the Niro EV scoring 1,552 units, its best result in a year, and the Soul EV registering 930 units, its best result since 2018.

Finally, we salute the small VW e-Up! in the Top 20, that thanks to 1,542 units (a new record), it jumped to #17, if we add its Czech Citigo EV (841 units) and Spanish e-Mii (436) twins, the triplets would have 2,819 units, which would place it in #5 on last month ranking. Who said City EVs weren't a thing?...

Outside the Top 20, we should notice the good performances of the new Mercedes C300e/de twins, with 1,048 registrations last month, the Opel Ampera-e (Euro-spec Chevrolet Bolt) ending its career on high note, by scoring a record result, with 999 registrations, and finally, the French DS 7 Crossback PHEV scored a record 1,084 units, with the PSA SUV looking to reach the Top 20 soon.

In the manufacturers ranking, BMW (12%) is the new leader, surpassing Renault (11%, down 2%) thanks to a strong lineup (it has 4 models in the Top 20), while behind them, Peugeot and Volkswagen, both with 8% share, are running for the Bronze medal. 



21 comments:

  1. LG factory in Poland did not stop.There is a good chance that the ms will be more than 10% in the near future.

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  2. Maarten VinkhuyzenMarch 31, 2020

    What great models did not make the top 20 is perhaps most amazing.
    Not only those other two triplets sisters. All thre are expected to sell around 20,000 this year. making the 60,000 production capacity for the triplets.
    Porsche Taycan is missing. Production still ramping or more exports to RotW?
    Mercedes EQC probably still in production hell.
    Were are the Smart models?
    Hyundai Ioniq?
    Kia Soul?
    Jaguar I-Pace.
    I think I can mention another 20 great BEV that belong on this list.

    And many others are still waiting for volume production to ramp.

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    1. Taycan - Still in ramp up mode, it had 400 registrations in February;

      Mercedes EQC - Same story, the (slooow) ramp up continues, with 471 units last month;

      Smart - It seems the VW triplets are stealing customers, because this year, sales still haven't taken off;

      Ioniq / Soul - They are close to the Top 20;

      i-Pace - 600 units last month, the competition is stepping up, and Jag's high price is getting harder to justify.

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    2. i-Pace - "But i still would"...It's still one of my favorite EVs.

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    3. VW claims they already got 20,000 orders for the e-Up! in Germany alone in the first three months... Don't know how much they will actually produce: but it looks like they might be making good on their promise of "EVs for everyone" -- just not with the much-vaunted ID.3, but rather with the unassuming e-Up!...

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    4. Who would imagine that the E-Up! would become the real " Elektrisch Volks-Wagen" :-)

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    5. That should read "elektrische Volkswagen" (or "elektrischer" in some contexts) -- though personally I think "Volkselektrowagen" is more quirky and funny :-) It also puts more emphasis on it being *the* electric people's car, not just any electric car for the people...

      (Originally I came up with that label for the ID.3: but for now at least, it seems that the e-Up! is actually more deserving of it...)

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    6. Turns out this was some misleading wording in their press release: the 20,000 orders are actually not just from Germany... Still pretty impressive, though.

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    7. @antrik: Danke schon :)

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  3. Who said city EVs weren't a thing? I did! ;-)

    Well, not exactly: I don't question that there are *some* people willing to buy an EV for the city only -- I'm just convinced it's too narrow a niche to be significant, or profitable. With the larger battery, I'm pretty sure most people buying the new e-Up! are doing so with the expectation that they can occasionally take it on trips outside town without much inconvenience. (Much like i3 etc.)

    And also I'm still sure that a ~50 kWh variant (preferably with faster charging) -- that will no doubt come in a few years (likely on a new platform) -- will be able to sell much better yet, even if it costs say 2,500 Euro more...

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  4. So I guess we have confirmation now that Renault wasn't actually having trouble ramping production of the new Zoe, but rather was hoarding them at the end of last year...

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  5. Funny that Model 3 making it "only" to second spot in Q1 now looks like a very likely possibility, when only a few weeks ago it would have seemed almost unthinkable...

    I'm still assuming that Tesla shipped enough units to Europe to make it to first place: but it looks like deliveries dipped significantly around mid-March, when the Corona situation got serious; so they will very likely end up with significant undelivered inventory at the end of the quarter -- almost certainly too much to get ahead of the Zoe...

    Will be interesting to see how this situation keeps playing out over the next months.

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  6. @José the "domestic market" number for the Zoe is way off: according to your article for France, it was actually more than 3000... (Which is in fact quite a bit more than double last year's number...)

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    1. @antrik: Sorry for this, i had forgotten to update the country performances of the Top 5. It's now updated.

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  7. From the posted data, carmaker standings are:

    1st Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance with 27710 vehicles
    2nd Volkswagen Group with 17559 vehicles
    3rd BMW Group with 14899 vehicles
    4th Groupe PSA with 10825 vehicles
    5th Kia-Hyundai with 9508 vehicles

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  8. Nice to see BEVs gaining 57% despite a big push of PHEVs. March will not be a good month in Europe, but the recovery from China should help sustain.
    Seems the info from USA will never be available even though its a open country. What a surprise.

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    1. The USA PEV market WAS an open market…

      Sad, but true.

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  9. Top-20 positions are evenly shared between 10 for BEVs and 10 for PHEVs. But BEVs win with Top-4 and then 7 in Top-10.

    Europe in 2020-02, Gasoline/Petrol has 54% share (58% previous year), Diesel 31%( 34%), XEV 13% ( 6.6%). Significant progress for XEV while gasoline / diesel are going down.
    https://insideevs.com/news/406127/february-2020-plugin-car-sales-europe/

    News about how oil & gas companies made us believe for the last 40 years that all plastics can be recycled when it is not. Avoid plastics wherever possible.
    https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/822597631/plastic-wars-three-takeaways-from-the-fight-over-the-future-of-plastics

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    1. While these revelations are chilling, I don't think plastics are actually that much of an environmental problem, as long as they end up in landfills. (Paper bags for example actually have a higher carbon footprint than paper bags, according to some sources...) The real problem with plastics is that they tend to end up in rivers and oceans way too often, mostly because many people don't give a shit :-(

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    2. Plastics ending up in oceans,lakes,rivers and then being torn into pieces and ending up in the stomach of fishes and humans eating the fishes; now you know the damage. In fact some say that the coronavirus started in Wuhan fish market.

      With the expected decrease in oil in transport sectors, oil companies are betting on plastics as bigger source of revenue.

      The fact that paper bags have higher footprint probably is a false news produced by big oil just like they say that EVs are powered by coal.

      In any case, its better to replace single use plastic bags with reusable tote bags and plastic cups with reusable mugs.

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    3. Pretty sure the data about carbon footprint is valid (and not originating from oil companies): unlike the anti-EV propaganda, I haven't seen anyone dispute it.

      Similar calculations show that ceramic plates need 500 times more energy to produce than disposable plates. Pretty sure the number is similar for mugs/cups. So while of course nobody should use disposable dishes at home, in situations where disposable ones are *typically* used, breakage alone likely far outweighs any hypothetical savings from reusable ones. (And that doesn't even consider logistics overhead...)

      I don't remember the exact number for tote bags vs. disposable ones: but it's also shockingly high -- and much longer than *most* people will likely use the same tote bag... (Though there are exceptions of course.)

      All of these examples show that the problem with single-use plastics is all about littering, not about production.

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