Volkswagen Had 19% Of Electric Vehicle Sales In Germany, Netherlands, Norway, & 6 Other European Countries In January & February

Germany’s electric vehicle model sales data came in sooner than I thought, so I’m already providing an update to this report. As I noted the other day, Germany’s numbers are enormous compared to the other countries included in this analysis, so adding its numbers in can really shift things around. To get rolling, the key aspects of this report are:

• It only looks at pure electric vehicles (BEVs), not other plug-in vehicles (plug-in hybrids and extended-range electric vehicles), let alone conventional hybrids.
• Registration (“sales”) data come from Germany (BEV market size of 194,000 in 2020), Norway (80,000), the Netherlands (73,000), Sweden (28,000), Switzerland (20,000), Spain (18,000), Denmark (7,000), Finland (4,000), and Ireland (4,000) courtesy of EU-EVs.com.

Also, in addition to February results, I’m including January–February results in this article.

One important note that everyone should know by now: Tesla’s deliveries are heavily weighted to the 3rd month in the quarter. So, much will change again when we get March numbers in. Until then, let’s look at how things are shaking out.

For now, the story that jumped out to me more than any other from these numbers is that Volkswagen accounted for 18.6% of pure electric vehicle sales in these 9 countries in the first 2 months of the year. Below Volkswagen, the second best selling brand was a faaaaaaaar drop down, with Renault grabbing the baton at 7.5% share of these 9 countries’ combined electric vehicle market. Hyundai and Peugeot slide in a bit below Renault (6.9% each, but Hyundai 12 units ahead). Tesla is close behind them (6.6% share) but will surely blow them around with some fast moving wind as it jets past them in March.

Boosting Volkswagen Group’s results further, Audi came in at #6 with 6.2% share, followed very closely by Smart at 6%. Then the Hyundai–Kia collaboration got a boost from the Kia side of the partnership.

Electric old-timers BMW and Nissan close out the top 10 with 4.2% and 4.1%, respectively.

Looking at the model results, the king of Europe to start the year is the Volkswagen ID.3 (8.5% of the market). And the small Volkswagen is followed by an even smaller electric Volkswagen, the e-UP, in the adjacent throne (6.8% of the market).

The Tesla Model 3 snuck in at the #3 spot (6.2% market share) thanks to a strong February finish, just ahead of the always-solid Renault Zoe, which is continuing to see a fair number of deliveries, just no longer enough to hold the crown (also 6.2% market share, but 28 units fewer than the Model 3).

The Hyundai Kona EV closed out the top 5 with 6% market share, while the big e-tron that is so popular in Norway came in at #6 (5.2% market share) and the tiny Smart Fortwo slips in right behind it (4.5% market share). The top 10 is wrapped up with the #8 Kia Niro EV (3.9%), the little BMW i3 (which I still love, despite passing ours on when we got a Model 3, and which also landed 3.9% market share despite trailing the Niro EV by 40 units), and the ancient-yet-still-competitive Nissan LEAF (3.5% market share).

In February, the Tesla Model 3 did already glide into the #1 position, but expect it to gain a lot of air over the rest of the pack in March. Otherwise, though, the rankings fell in line in a very similar way as January–February … which isn’t surprising given that February is approximately half of that period.

The other things that popped into my head looking at these numbers were simply the existence of the MINI E and Honda E and Fiat 500e (little EVs that have some definite character but also still have poor specs), some of the electric vans (like the Toyota Proace — which I don’t recall running across before), and the Lexus UX300e (where did that come from?).

Did anything else jump out to you looking at these lists?