The German electric vehicle market has nearly doubled in size since last year (comparing new sales in September 2014 to new sales in September 2013).
To be specific — the market saw 1,099 electric vehicles registered in September, bringing the share of the market belonging to electric vehicles up to 0.46%. That’s about twice the percentage held by electric vehicles last September — 0.23%.
The month’s sales are split pretty evenly between some of the major names in the field — with offerings from Nissan, Renault, Smart, and BMW all seeing good sales.
To be exact — the Smart Fortwo Electric Drive led the sales in September, with 186 units sold (17% of EV sales); followed by the Nissan Leaf, with 176 units sold (16% of EV sales); and the BMW i3, with 131 units sold (12% of EV sales). These sales leaders were followed by the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, with 91 units sold (8%); and the Renault Zoe, with 78 sold (7%).
The numbers from September changed the overall year-to-date rankings just ever so slightly — nudging the Nissan Leaf up to the #6 position (7% of the EV market), from #7. The gain comes at the expense of the Tesla Model S (now 5% of the EV market), which has yet to make a real dent in the German market. The BMW i3 (20% of the market), VW e-Up! (12% of the market), and smart electric drive (11%) are leading the pack for the year to date.
EV-Sales.blogspot notes: “At the middle of the ranking, the Mitsu I-Miev climbed one position to #15, whereas the Opel Ampera was down to #16…And to think that just last year the Opel PHEV ended at #6 and in 2012 it was even runner-up to the Twizy!”
It adds: “The Mercedes products are (very) slowly climbing positions, with the B-Class ED #20, with 27 units sold until now, while the S500 Plug-In is #22. The B-Class performance in particular looks particularly poor, after the same three months on sale, the technologically more complex BMW i3 had already sold 151 units — a case of lack of stock or demand?”
Overall, a doubling of EV sales is still a big positive, but 0.46% of the market is still tiny. The Germans, unlike the Norwegians, just can’t seem to be motivated to buy that many electric cars, even when the electric cars in question are homegrown.
Below is a table of the September and year-to-date stats for more details. Note that they are not 100% accurate, come from the EV-Sales blogspot, and include estimates for some VW models.
