The Dog Days Are Over in the French EV market, with the pandemic’s disruption now behind it, and a new stimulus package from the local government that can go up to €12,000. (Now imagine if the €16,000 Dacia Spring EV lands in time for this kind of incentive — it will be yours for peanuts!)
With the overall French market slowly returning to normal (last month it was down just 50%), plugin vehicle sales are also returning to form, with registrations up a splendid 77% year over year in May, to 7,167 units.
While the overall French market ground to a halt due to the coronavirus lockdown (-89% year over year), plugins were down just 66%, with fully electric vehicles (BEVs) faring slightly better, down only -62%. That allowed BEVs to have 74% of the plugin market last month, slightly better than this year’s average of 73%.
With the overall French market crumbling (-72% year over year!) due to the coronavirus lockdown, and the country returning to registrations levels (62,668 units) not seen in the past 50 years, one would think that plug-ins would suffer too, right? The answer to that is “yes” and “no.”
After January’s record performance, the French plug-in electric vehicle market continued on fire in February, seeing 13,317 registrations last month.
New record sales mean that exactly 10 times as many full electric cars were sold in February 2020 compared to the same month last year.
The French plug-in passenger electric vehicle market broke all of its previous records in January, with all-electric models jumping 258% to 10,952 units and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles surging 238% to 3,813 registrations.
