Yes, the Swedish electric vehicle market is an odd one in which approximately 80% of electric vehicle sales are plug-in hybrids, leaving only 20% of the market for fully electric vehicles. Most EV markets are around 50–50 or favor fully electric vehicles (BEVs). Nonetheless, an overall EV market share of 26% is a stunning achievement in early 2020.
The Swiss plug-in electric vehicle market rose to 8% of the overall Swiss auto market in February, led by the evergreen Renault Zoe.
With the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) market suffering from the general lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, sales took an expected beating, with only 15,000 passenger EVs registered in February, the worst result in over 3 years, representing a 65% drop year over year.
Following the start of the EU’s new CO2 rules, the German plug-in market has (finally) clicked and February signaled another record performance, its second in a row, having registered 16,508 units in February.
Volkswagen says it is altering the composition of its battery cells to use more nickel and less cobalt. BMW says the next generation of its 7 Series sedan will offer an all electric powertrain.
We recently reported on the Tesla Model 3 being the 3rd best selling vehicle in California in 2019 as well as the Tesla Model X ranking either #1 or #4 in its class, depending on which class you put it in. Some other electric cars did quite well in California as well, though. The Chevy Bolt was the 2nd best selling subcompact car in California and the BMW i3 was the 3rd best selling “entry luxury car” there.
After January’s record performance, the French plug-in electric vehicle market continued on fire in February, seeing 13,317 registrations last month.
In the automotive echo chamber, BMW is seen as the leader in electrification of autos. Among those that look at the future disruptive transition to tailpipe-free vehicles, BMW was climbing to the top of the “will likely not survive” list. Both rankings are based on the vision of BMW’s top managers, CEO Harald Krueger and CTO Klaus Fröhlich.
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.
A lot has been written about traditional automakers trying very hard to delay the mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), as they still have massive investments made in the internal combustion engine (ICE) ecosystem to recoup.
