36% Of New Mitsubishis & 95% Of New Outlanders = Outlander Plug-In Hybrid In Netherlands
Originally published on EV Obsession.
Well, the Netherlands is certainly turning out to be one of the most interesting electric vehicle markets in the world. It is #2 in terms of electric cars’ percentage of total new car sales, but the cars leading the pack keep changing. The Dutch plug-in hybrid fetish is apparently as strong as ever, and some new and new-ish plug-in hybrid models are giving the running champ — the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV — a serious run for its money.
The Volkswagen Golf GTE continues its reign at #1, but the Outlander PHEV actually got kicked out of the #2 spot as well now, by the Audi A3 e-tron (which is basically the Golf GTE with a different body and brand, btw), and it barely fended off the #4 Mercedes 350e — with only 3 more registrations in the month of July! Will the Outlander PHEV be able to hold onto a medal in August? We’ll see!
Of course, for the year to date, the Outlander PHEV has a solid hold on silver (and the Volkswagen Golf GTE has a solid hold on gold). The Audi A3 e-tron is holding onto bronze, but the the Volvo V60 PHEV isn’t far behind it.
Btw, where the hell are all of the 100% electric cars? The Tesla Model S is barely holding onto the #5 spot, but looks like it will easily be overtaken by the new and quickly rising Mercedes 350e — unless someone accidentally takes out the 350e’s knees in a back alley. In the month of July, the Model S was just 3 registrations ahead of the Ford C-Max Energi (yes, C-Max Energi!) in the #6 spot. you have to scroll down to the anthills to find the BMW i3, Nissan LEAF, Renault Zoe, Smart Electric Drive, Mercedes B-Class Electric, etc.
What’s with the Dutch not buying more fully electric cars? I still don’t really get it, even after my trip to the Netherlands and conversations with numerous Dutch electric vehicle experts. They’ve got better incentives for fully electric cars, they’ve got easy access to on-street EV charging (the government will install chargers for you), they’ve got an excellent and fast-growing EV fast-charger network from Fastned, it’s a small country geographically, and there are very attractive (Model S, i3, B-Class Electric) as well as affordable (Zoe, Leaf, etc.) models on the market. It’s still a bit of a mystery to me.
Btw, Dutch plug-in car sales represented about 6.6% of all new car sales in July, and about 6% for January through July. Not earth-shattering, but 2nd only to Norway. José Pontes makes some other awesome notes that get me much more excited: the VW Golf GTE represented 38% of all VW Golf registrations in the Netherlands in July, the Audi A3 e-tron represented 61% of all A3 registrations, the Mercedes C350e represented 71% of all C-Class registrations, and the Outlander PHEV represented 95% of all Outlander registrations and 39% of all Mitsubishi registrations. WOW.
Anyway, jump into the charts and table below! And as always, thanks to José Pontes for the numbers*.
*Note that these registration numbers require some assumptions and are not all from an official source. I’ve tried to track down complete numbers in the past, but the nature of the beast these days is that they just aren’t available. I’ve also found mistakes and odd assumptions in José’s numbers in the past, but they are still far and away the best I have found aggregated on the internet. So, be cautious with how you use these sales statistics, but the general picture should be accurate and useful.
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