I’ve deciphered KBA’s registration data enough that I actually feel comfortable reporting on Germany’s May plug-in registrations. Like it is with almost every country, there were still holes remaining in the data. For example, for models that have a gas version and an electric or plug-in hybrid electric version, it isn’t completely clear how many of the registrations were for the plug-in version. For those models, I used estimates from the EV-Sales blogspot.
The surprising thing in May was seeing the Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in on top (22% market share), rather than the homegrown BMW i3 (19%), Volkswagen e-Golf (19%), or Volkswagen e-Up! (15%). Still, those three German models did quite well. There’s still a lot of room for growth, but Germans are finally getting rolling with the EV revolution.
It’s still surprising to see the Tesla Model S (4% market share in May) and Nissan Leaf (2%) not growing faster in Germany. It’s hard to know for sure if the Tesla numbers are low because of low demand or because of limited supply, but we’ve been seeing much higher numbers in other European countries, so it seems likely that demand is still not very high there.
Year to date, the BMW i3 (27% of the market) is still way ahead, followed by the VW e-Up! (18%) and the Germany-based Smart Electric Drive (12%), so all is not a surprise. The Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in (10%) comes in at #4 overall, but if the boost in May is from supply finally catching up to demand, we may see it rise fast in the coming months. The Renault Zoe (9% market share), Tesla Model S (8%), Nissan Leaf (7%), and VW e-Golf (6%) all have decent sales as well.
Any other big thoughts from these numbers?
Here are static versions of the charts above in case that’s helpful:
