Spain March 2014

The Bimmer is doing OK in Spain

Red Numbers Edition

If EV's are flourishing in Ireland, the Spanish panorama is much different, with just 111 units sold in the First Quarter and 0,05% EV Share, far from the 0,18% registered last year.

Only two models sold in the two digits area last month, the Nissan Leaf was #1 in March with 18 units, while the YTD leader, BMW i3, sold 10 units.

Horrible times for Renault, #2 in the manufacturers ranking with 24% share (21% less than last year), behind the surprise BMW (32%) and ahead of Nissan (#3 with 19% share).

As for the rest of the market, the numbers are really low, with the #4 Volvo V60 Plug-In collecting 13 sales and achieving the best selling Plug-In Hybrid title ahead of the #5 Panamera Plug-In (7 units). In a curious race, the Model S is #6 with 6 units and will be interesting to see if it can surpass the Porsche and win the High End Plug-In Sports Sedan duel.

Final mention for the #7, the Renault Zoe just sold four units this year and hasn't scored a two digit performance since last October, i'm sure those "Batteries Included" banners are eagerly awaited by Renault dealers...

Pl	Spain	March	YTD'14	%	'13Pl
1	BMW i3	10	36	32	11
2	Renault Twizy e)	5	23	21	2
3	Nissan Leaf	18	21	19	1
4	Volvo V60 Plug-In		13	12	N/A
5	Porsche Panamera Plug-In		7	6	12
6	Tesla Model S	2	6	5	16
7	Renault Zoe	3	4	3	3
8	Toyota Prius Plug-In	1	1	1	10
	TOTAL	39	111	100

Source: ANIACAM

Ireland March 2014

Nissan Leaf

Under the Blue Sky Edition

The New Year has been great for the Irish EV market, having registered 102 units in just three months and going back to 2011 levels, surpassing the 58 units sold in the whole of 2013, with the EV Share rocketing to a respectable 0,20%. 

It seems that the Good Days are back to this market, which i believe it's one of the best suited for electric cars. 

Looking at the ranking, it looks as if Nissan is the only manufacturer interested in selling electric cars in the Emerald Island, as 98 of the 102 electric cars sold in Ireland were Nissan Leaf's...Moving on, i think that selling 300 plug-ins this year, which is roughly the number of all EV's sold here until December '13, is possible and would be a great feat to achieve.

Ireland	YTD'14	2013
Nissan Leaf	98	43
BMW i3	3	1
Renault Twizy	1	3
TOTAL	102	100

Source: beepbeep.ie

Canada March 2014

Canada, always faithful to the Chevy Volt

A Pretty Good Month Edition

With 255 sales in March, the Canadian EV market had a good month, mostly thanks to good performances from the Chevrolet Volt, which sold 105 units (Best score of the year) and the Nissan Leaf, that with 75 registrations, it had the second best result ever in Canada, only behind the 82 units sold...In March 2013.

In the models ranking, the Big Three (Volt; Leaf; Model S) continue dominating the podium, with the only news being the Prius Plug-In exceptional performance, scoring its best performance since last August, with a total amount of...13 units.

Oh Canada, you never fail to excite us!

Pl	Canada	March	YTD	%
1	Chevrolet Volt	105	269	41
2	Nissan Leaf	75	180	27
3	Tesla Model S e)	20	60	9
4	Ford C-Max Energi e)	15	45	7
5	Smart Fortwo ED e)	10	30	5
5	Ford Fusion Energi e)	10	30	5
7	Toyota Prius Plug-In	13	21	3
8	Mitsubishi I-Miev		12	2
8	Ford Focus Electric e)	5	12	2
10	Cadillac ELR	2	3	0
11 12	Chevrolet Spark EV Fisker Karma		1 1	0 0
	TOTAL	255	664	100

e) Estimate

Source: Good Car Bad Car

Netherlands March 2014

This car has struck a chord with dutch buyers

Back to Business Edition

After the Hangover (January) and Recovery (February) from last year sales phenomenon, the Dutch EV market is back in full swing with some 1.900 units sold and the 2013 Best Seller Outlander PHEV back in charge with close to 1.000 sales, followed by the V60 Plug-In (459 units), but it's after these two that the March ranking gets interesting: Four BEV's follow!

That's right, with Tesla Model S in #3 (190 units), Nissan Leaf in #4 (138 units, new personal best), #5 for BMW i3 (89) and #6 for VW e-Up! (64), the ratio PHEV vs BEV moved from 85% in December '13 to 73% last month, side effects from the fiscal changes?

After starting the year under the 1% threshold, the EV share (3,31%) is now back to more healthy values, although still far from the 5,55% recorded last year.

Pl	Netherlands	March	YTD	%	'13Pl
1 2	Mitsu Outlander PHEV e) Volvo V60 Plug-In e)	931 459	1.397 1.177	39 33	1 2
3	Volkswagen e-Up! e)	64	354	10	7
4	Tesla Model S	190	207	6	5
5	BMW i3	89	176	5	10
6	Nissan Leaf	138	154	4	9
7 8	Renault Zoe Mitsubishi I-Miev	19	32 26	1 1	8 15
9	Toyota Prius Plug-In		11	0	3
10	Opel Ampera		5	0	4
11	Renault Twizy		4	0	12
11	Renault Fluence ZE		4	0	19
13	Peugeot iOn		3	0	18
	TOTAL	1.890	3.550	100

e) Estimate

Source: BSCB

USA March 2014

Leaf for sale in SF dealership

It Could Have Been Better Edition

9.376 units were sold last month in the US EV market, a 17% increase over the same month last year, but it didn't compared well with the 28% jump made in February.

Looking at the models ranking, we see the Leaf winning the top spot for the fifth consecutive month, followed at a distance by the #2 Model S from Tesla (It just doesn't have enough stock to fulfill demand), in Third came the Chevy Volt (Is it starting to show its age?), with the #4 Prius Plug-In coming right after it (1.452 sales, best result since last October).

The Energi cousins follow behind the four major players and way behind comes the rest of the pack, where things are a bit more interesting:

The Ford Focus Electric and Smart Fortwo ED fight unit-for-unit for #7 and the best of the platoon title, while from #9 to #13 there's lots of ups and downs, with the last three positions handed to Hondas (Fit EV is in run out mode and the Accord Plug-In just doesn't seduce buyers) and the Mitsubishi I-Miev, which is waiting for the 2014 modelyear to increase sales.

Pl	USA	March	YTD	%
1	Nissan Leaf	2.507	5.184	24
2	Tesla Model S e)	1.600	3.800	17
3	Chevrolet Volt	1.478	3.606	16
4	Toyota Prius Plug-In	1.452	3.296	15
5	Ford Fusion Energi	899	2.231	10
6	Ford C-Max Energi	610	1.633	7
7	Ford Focus Electric	177	406	2
8	Smart Fortwo ED	186	405	2
9	Chevrolet Spark EV	108	272	1
10	Porsche Panamera Plug-In	56	254	1
11	Toyota RAV4 EV	73	237	1
12 13 14	Fiat 500e e) Cadillac ELR Honda Fit EV	70 81 37	200 180 100	1 1 0
15 16	Honda Accord Plug-In Mitsubishi I-Miev	18 24	69 28	0 0
	TOTAL	9.376	21.901	100

Source: insideevs.com

Norway March 2014 (Updated)

An increasingly common scene in Norway

Springtime Records - Second Chapter

While in neighboring Sweden a new record was set in March after reaching 1.5% EV Share, in Norway that number now sets at over 21%!

Effectively, some 3.000 EV's were sold in Norway last month, with the Tesla Model S reaching the Number One spot of the General Ranking with an astonishing result of 1.493 units sold, not only the best result for an electric car in Norway, but it's also the best monthly score for ANY car, the previous record (1.267) had been set by the VW Passat back in 2007! 

But wait, there's more, three plug-ins reached a personal best score, with the VW e-Up! registering some 380 units (#3 in the EV ranking), the BMW i3 scoring 336 units (#4 EV) and the Mitsu Outlander PHEV some 260 units (#5 EV and best PHEV). Oh, and the Nissan Leaf sold 425 units, but that already doesn't cut it as headline news.... 

Putting things in perspective, Four Electric Cars Featured the General Top 10 (#1 Model S; #4 Leaf; #9 e-Up!; #10 i3), besides the otherworldly performance of Tesla (10.8% share in March), now the YTD best selling car in Norway, the Nissan Leaf was #3 in the compact ("C") segment, behind the Toyota Auris and the once unreachable VW Golf, and it's the #3 YTD best selling car.

Plug-ins are spreading throughout other segments, the VW e-Up! is eons above the rest of the A-Segment cars, the BMW i3 was the best selling B-Segment car in March and the Outlander PHEV was the second best selling midsize SUV. 

All this leaded the YTD EV share to reach a staggering number: 16,2%. And to think that the 6% reached last year was something to write about...

With sales going through the roof and the VW e-Golf still to be launched, it seems that we've reached a tipping point where sales will only go up, making Norway a case study of what will happen in the ROW in ten years time.

Pl	Norway	March	YTD '14	%	'13Pl
1	Tesla Model S	1.493	2.056	35	2
2	Nissan Leaf	425	1.559	27	1
3	Volkswagen e-Up!	379	720	12	3
4	BMW i3	336	646	11	13
5	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	258	439	7	N/A
6	Mitsubishi I-Miev	54	132	2	4
7	Citröen C-Zero	93	123	2	9
8	Peugeot Partner EV e)	30	91	2	7
9	Citröen Berlingo EV e)	10	29	0	N/A
10	Peugeot iOn	8	23	0	10
11	Toyota Prius Plug-In	3	15	0	6
11 13 13	Renault Kangoo ZE e) Volvo V60 Plug-In Renault Zoe	5 5 16	18 16 16	0 0 0	8 5 N/A
13 16 17	Ford Focus Electric Opel Ampera Renault Fluence ZE	9 3 1	16 11 7	0 0 0	11 12 N/A
	TOTAL	3.128	5.918	100

e) Estimate

Source: ofvas.no

Sweden March 2014

Theme of the Month: Ads

Springtime Records - First Chapter

In March the Swedish EV Market blew off the previous sales record (277 units in February 2013) with 426 EV's sold (And 1,5% share), starting a trend that will be repeated in a number of markets this month.

Mitsubishi Sweden is on a roll these days (33% Share), with 144 Outlander PHEV plus 6 I-Miev registered, after reaching the #1 spot in December, the japanese carmaker never again ceased to grow in Sweden.

In #2, Volvo (17% Share) started to sell in decent numbers, registering 87 V60 Plug-In and 2 C30 Electric, but it has to work hard if it wants to remove Mitsubishi from the leadership.

Toyota (11%) ended in #3 and it looks unable to reach the first two, while Nissan (11%) and BMW (9%) are looking menacingly close from the Big T.

Final mention for Tesla, finally selling in decent numbers (26 units) here.

Pl	Sweden	March	YTD '14	%	'13Pl
1	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	144	248	32	6
2	Volvo V60 Plug-In	87	121	16	1
3	Toyota Prius Plug-In	45	86	11	2
4	Nissan Leaf	38	85	11	3
5	BMW i3	38	70	9	11
6	Volkswagen e-Up!	22	56	7	8
7	Tesla Model S	26	34	4	14
8	Renault Kangoo ZE	13	32	4	4
9	Renault Twizy e)	5	15	2	5
10 11 12 13 14 14 14	Volvo C30 Electric Opel Ampera Mitsubishi I-Miev Peugeot iOn Citröen C-Zero Porsche Panamera Plug-In Ford Focus Electric	2 6	12 9 6 2 1 1 1	2 1 1 0 0 0 0	7 9 10 N/A 12 N/A 15
	TOTAL	426	779	100

e) - Estimate

Source: bilsweden.se; manufacturers; http://teslaclubsweden.se/information/antal-salda-bilar/.