Europe’s largest auto market, Germany, hit another all-time record plug-in electric vehicle market share in March, reaching 9.2%. The Tesla Model 3 was the best selling full electric model, with an estimated 1490 sales, just ahead of the Renault Zoe. Overall auto market volume fell 38% year on year.
Like some other automakers, Volkswagen Group hasn’t been sitting idly and waiting to reopen the many factories the conglomerate owns and runs. Instead, the auto giant has been contributing a large amount of money and varied resources in Europe to help out, including developing and supplying critical medical supplies and even medical staff.
Perhaps the most fascinating new question in this year’s Electric Car Drivers: Demands, Desires & Dreams reports concerned the electric vehicles people considered but didn’t buy. We asked EV owners which other electric vehicle models they thought about buying before deciding on the one they purchased or leased. I was surprised to see how much people actually cross-shopped across classes while considering which electric vehicle to buy.
Siemens Mobility has won a contract to build 20 battery electric trains for a German state. The two car trains seat 120 people and have a range of 80 kilometers.
0.9% of all Tesla Model 3s ever delivered are for sale in Germany, while 51% of all Daimler EQCs are!
Probably the most interesting question we asked in these surveys was one of the simplest: “What do you think your next EV model will be?” It is particularly interesting because it gives us a strong sense of where the market is headed, and combined with answers to some other questions (see the next chapter), it also tells us a bit about which features and specs matter the most to EV buyers.
We recently surveyed EV drivers in four major European EV markets in order to learn more about their experiences as well as desires and requirements for future EVs. Those markets are the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, and France.
Germany, Europe’s single largest auto market, saw February plug-in vehicle market share hit 6.9%, consolidating January’s growth trend. Meanwhile, February’s overall auto volume fell by 10.8% year-on-year in Germany, from 268,867 to 239,943, with combustion vehicles taking all of the losses.
German construction company Arikon is scheduled to start building Giga Berlin on March 19.
Germany set a renewable energy record in February thanks to a surge in wind generation.
