The Chinese market had 44,874 new electric cars in December, far from the 60,000 expected by analysts, but still up 27% year over year (YoY). That pulled the plug-in market share to a record 1.45%, above the USA (0.8%) and Europe (1.3%).
How many electric vehicles will be sold in the US during 2016? Will Chevy Bolt EV sales grow rapidly following nationwide availability in the late summer? What about Toyota Prius Prime sales (if Toyota ever works out the dealership issues)? What will happen with the Tesla Model 3? Will it launch on time? Will mass production begin this year, or not truly until 2018?
Renewable energy is now the cheapest option, on average, for new electricity capacity around the world — developed countries like the US as well as developing countries. As I noted the other day, we need to keep channeling this message to the broader public, and especially decision-makers, but there are other things to do in order to increase renewable energy growth.
Back in August 2014, I polled CleanTechnica readers on when an electric car would break into the top 20 of US car sales. The specific question was, “When will a plug-in car break into the top 20 of monthly US car sales?”
The most popular response (27%) was 2017.
A guy walks into a local Chevy dealer. Says, “Hey, you guys got any Bolts? That’s Bolt, with a B.” In return, the guy receives blank stares from the sales staff … replaced shortly by smiles, a negatory on the Bolt, and a verbal rundown of all the great models on the lot the guy would just love, such as the Cruze, the Sonic, the Malibu, and yes, the Volt. The Spark went unmentioned.
US electric car sales had another record month in December, and again reached a record market share in the country. Fully electric and plug-in hybrid electric car sales reached 19,133 in December (and 144,455 sales for 2016 as a whole), which put EV market share among all passenger cars at a record 1.13% (and 0.82% for 2016 as a whole).
Remember a few short years ago when the hot debate was whether cars in the future would be predominantly powered by fuel cells versus batteries? And even more fundamentally, if electric vehicles would ever move beyond the niche “green” and luxury-performance buying market? My how sentiment seems to have changed recently.
To supplement my article published earlier today regarding the 20 fully electric car models that are currently for sale in Europe and/or North America, here’s another one on the 23 plug-in hybrids that are currently on the market in these places.
We’ve been rather discretely rolling out cleantech consumer buying guides, which we’ll be continuously updating and improving as time goes on. The first resource page (found at products.cleantechnica.com) covers current electric cars for sale (or soon coming to market) in North America and Europe.
The European EV market had more than 18,500 registrations last month, 5% down over the same month last year. This sales slip has to do with the incentives-derived sales rush in the last quarter of 2015 in some major EV markets, so expect this trend to continue through December. Last month, the top spots remained more or less like in October:
