Some of the latest electric vehicle (EV) sales figures for some of the biggest makers in Europe recently became available. By “sales,” what I’m referring to here are actually “new vehicle registrations” (a pretty close analog). Also, it should be noted that, while Jose Pontes does great work painstakingly collecting registration data, it’s almost never complete, which leaves the requirement to make estimates for some models and leave others out. Why report on this if the numbers aren’t official and completely accurate? Because they still give and interesting general view of important EV markets.
The markets in question in this story — the EV markets of France, Norway, & Germany — all saw pretty good sales during April 2015, though there was some variance there.
France EV Sales
France saw solid numbers — with more than 2,300 EVs registered during the month, representing a new, all-time high (and now representing a greater than 1% share of the total new vehicle market).
As far as which models sold well, the French-made Renault Zoe dominated the list, with 1,249 new units sold during April 2015. The Nissan LEAF followed far behind (in second) with 153 units sold. In third was the Audi A3 e-tron with 138 units sold. Following in fourth and fifth were the VW Golf GTE (118 units sold) and the Bolloré Blue Car (112 units sold). Interestingly, the Renault Kangoo ZE fell out of the top 5 this month, with only 107 units sold in April.
Germany EV Sales
Things went well in Germany during April 2015 as well, with a total of 1,719 units sold — altogether representing a 60% increase in sales as compared against April 2014. EV sales now account for 0.59% of all new vehicle sales in the country.
The list in Germany was unsurprisingly topped by a German manufacturer’s offering, the VW Golf GTE in this case (with 277 units sold). That was followed by another German company’s offering, the BMW i3 (with 219 units sold). In third, the foreign Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV managed to take third (with 202 units sold). In fourth was another German offering, the Audi A3 e-Tron (with 192 units sold). And fifth was a tie, with both the Renault Zoe and the Tesla Model S selling 86 units.
Norway EV Sales
As far as Norway goes, I’m not going to call April 2015’s sales bad (they’re better than France’s and Germany’s despite being a much smaller country in terms of population), but they weren’t great either (as compared to where figures in the sparsely populated country had been). Altogether, 2,552 units were sold during the month. While that is something of a drop with regard to total market share, EVs still make up 21% of the total new vehicles market in the country.
As far as which vehicles sold the best in Norway during April, that list was topped by the VW e-Golf (with 804 units registered). This was followed by the Tesla Model S (with 230 units registered). The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV followed in third (with 190 units registered). In fourth was the Audi A3 e-Tron (182 units) and in fifth was the Nissan LEAF (167 units).
