With the German auto market slowly recovering from the pandemic-related lockdown, dropping just 50% year over year (YoY) in May, the local plugin market stepped up the growth pace last month, having registered 12,333 units, up 56% YoY.
Norwegian road assistance company NAF has completed the world’s longest EV range test. The company tested 29 of Norway’s most popular EVs. They tested the actual range in the summer, what happens when EVs go into power-saving mode, and how they charge in heat degrees.
Last month I published that the Audi e-tron was the king of Norway. That hasn’t changed, and it doesn’t look likely that anyone’s going knock its crown off this year. But never count Tesla out.
Europe’s largest auto market, Germany, saw plugin electric vehicle market share of 7.3% in May, up from 2.4% a year ago. Meanwhile, the overall auto market volume was down 50% year on year. New government stimulus measures will give electric vehicles a further boost in the coming months.
A couple of weeks ago, I published a report showing US new auto sales were down 496,600 in the first quarter of 2020 (compared to the first quarter of 2019). That seemed like a stunning, jaw-dropping drop in auto sales. Looking at the global auto sales story, though, the 496,000 drop looks like peanuts. In the same period, new auto sales were down by more than 6 million units globally.
The European passenger plug-in market scored 31,500 registrations in April, down 16% year over year (YoY), which is nevertheless a great performance considering the effect that the several lockdowns across the continent made and the overall market crashing (-78% YoY). That combo inflated last month’s plug-in share to an amazing 11% share.
Norway remains one of the most fascinating auto markets in the world. With a 70% plug-in vehicle market share in the first 4 months of 2020, there is nothing that comes close to it. That isn’t an overnight figure either — the country has been far ahead of any other market in terms of plug-in vehicle market share for several years.
Based on CleanTechnica’s sophisticated number crunching, in the first quarter of 2020, the Tesla Model 3 had 5× more sales than the Chevy Bolt, 14× more sales than the Nissan LEAF…
Germany saw the auto market drop 61% in April. While that doesn’t look good for the industry, it was much more resilient than the large neighboring markets of France and the UK.
April saw clean transport pioneer Norway’s market share of plug-in electric vehicles jump to 70%, sharply up from 50% a year ago. This is the biggest year-on-year climb that we have seen in two years. Popular plug-in models in April included the Audi e-tron, VW e-Golf, and Nissan LEAF.
