If you keep up with all the European electric car sales reports I publish, you already now that the Nissan Leaf is crushing it — in Europe as well as globally. Well, Nissan just put out a news release all about this, and it includes a number of cool stats, so I figured you could handle an extra sales report solely dedicated to the Leaf.
25% more Nissan Leafs were sold in Europe in 2013 than the #2 best-selling electric vehicle.
33% of the EV passenger car market in Europe now belongs to the Leaf. (Though, I think that’s unlikely to hold with several competitive EVs coming to market in just the past couple of months.)
The #1 best-selling car (of any type) in Norway was the Leaf in January. In all of 2013, it was #3. Its sales in January 2014 were 145% higher than in January 2013.
240% sales January sales growth was the name of the game in France, with the Leaf for the first time taking the #1 spot in that Renault-based country. (Actually, amongst all EVs, the Renault Kangoo ZE took the #1 spot, but I assume that Nissan didn’t count that since it’s a van, not a car.)
The Leaf was EV market leader in Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, and the United Kingdom in 2013. “Huge strides are being made in the UK with sales of the British-built Nissan LEAF increasing by more than 1000 percent in January versus the prior year. The UK recently saw the installation of the 195th CHAdeMO rapid charger at the Clackett Lane Services on the M25. These chargers can “refuel” a Nissan LEAF from 0-80 percent battery in just 30 minutes at zero cost to the driver. The UK charger was the 1000th CHAdeMO rapid charger in Europe, almost double the number installed by January 2013.” That UK manufacturing is certainly helping Leaf sales across Europe, as it brings down cost a great deal.
“January has been a fantastic start to 2014, a year when we will launch our second 100 percent electric model in Europe – the Nissan e-NV200 light commercial vehicle,” said Jean-Pierre Diernaz, Director of Electric Vehicles, Nissan Europe. “Our most recent survey following the launch of the improved European-built Nissan LEAF shows that 97 percent of owners would recommend a Nissan LEAF to a friend, and we believe this, combined with a rapidly expanding charging infrastructure, will bring further growth in 2014. We are moving from the early adopters to the early majority.”
Globally, Nissan has now seen over 100,000 Leaf sales.
Check out more Nissan Leaf news here on EV Obsession.
Image: Nissan Leafs in Barcelona, Spain. (CC BY-SA license, with the key requirement being that credit be given to Zachary Shahan / EV Obsession / CleanTechnica, and that those links not be removed.)