The German electric vehicle market grew by around 82% in 2015 (as compared to 2014) — with a total of 24,156 units delivered in the country during the year — according to EV-Volumes, an EV sales database and consultancy that has partnered with EV Obsession and CleanTechnica.
Electric vehicles + plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) still only made up around 0.7% of the total German auto market in 2015, despite the decent growth, though. Worth noting is that, as one can see in the graph below, deliveries were loaded towards the end of the year rather than the beginning.
As we reported earlier, this rate of growth is apparently not to the liking of many officials and citizens in the country, and it appears that substantial electric vehicle (EV) incentives may be made available in the near future. To be more specific, up to €5000 in subsidies for all-electric vehicles (EVs) — to be paid for partly by the country’s automakers.
In related news, sales figures for January 2016 were recently made available as well. EV-Volumes provides more:
Total sales of plug-ins were just 1450 units, only 13% higher than for January 2015. Most surprising is the absence of Kia Soul in the top-10. The Soul was the winner of 2015, with over 900 sales in December alone. In January, only 37 were delivered. Also the BMW i3, Germany’s #2 plug-in of 2015 has a slow start in 2016.
28% of plug-in sales were Kia Soul during the previous quarter and without these sales, January looks bleaker than the volume of other models would suggest. The situation is likely to be temporary; more about it in the next update for Q1 of 2016.
Decent numbers, but without the aforementioned incentives going into place, the country’s electric vehicle market seems unlikely to see a significant change anytime soon — as most German automakers have been slow to offer substantive electric offerings, and a great many Germans only buy German cars.
Image Credits: EV-Volumes