February had 1,058 registrations in February 2018, up 116% compared to February 2017, with fully electric cars (BEVs) making for the vast majority of the market (85%). The strong BEV month contributed decisively to the current 2.8% plug-in vehicle (PEV) market share, a good improvement over the 2.2% share of last year.
February is traditionally the slowest selling month in China, but with electric car sales at around 34,000, there’s not much to complain about — numbers were up 88% year over year (YoY), making this by far the best February ever.
I just shared our top 20 articles in February, but it’s already time to share the hottest 20 articles of the past week here on CleanTechnica. Check ’em out:
Here’s our February electric car sales report for the United States, which complements our just-published Europe and China electric car sales reports.
As usual, the report only includes electric cars from Tesla and companies that report their monthly plug-in car sales. Furthermore, the Tesla sales are not official and are based on several Tesla statements, Tesla reports, Tesla forecasts, and broader consumer investigation. This month, I also started crowdsourcing estimates for Model 3 deliveries. My estimate was leaning toward 3,000, but I decided to go with Knetter’s estimate of 3,030 for the report.
The European passenger plug-in car market started the 2018 season with almost 26,000 registrations, growing 36% compared to the same period last year, a promising start that unfortunately is being made for the most part thanks to growth in plug-in hybrids (+44% year over year). In fact, plug-in hybrids now represent more than half (53%) of deliveries.
I was about to close out the month and get off the computer (at 2:20 am, admittedly), but then something obvious hit me — why not crowdsource the coming Tesla Model 3 delivery estimate for the month of February?
I generally base Tesla delivery estimates for my monthly US electric car sales reports on many factors, but I’ve somehow not previously thought to tap the vast CleanTechnica reader knowledge & speculation base for support.
The Chinese market for pure electric buses had approximately 89,546 sales last year. This is down from 115,700 sales in 2016. This means that year on year, the market sales decreased by 23%. Reports indicate that this decrease is down to multiple factors, but mainly due to changes to electric bus subsidies from Chinese national and local governments.
Looking at the US sales of top electric cars (including plug-in hybrids), one thing stands out in January: Tesla dominates. This is unlikely to change anytime soon. Though, hopefully Nissan LEAF sales surge with the new version and hopefully Bolt, Volt, and Prius Prime sales rise higher than they did by the end of 2017.
The hottest CleanTechnica story of the past week was, no surprise, a Tesla-related story. It initially seemed to be a rather humble, inconspicuous, unpretentious but interesting reflection of Steve’s time driving and riding in the Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, and Chevy Bolt in the Middle East during a 2018 Global EVRT adventure, but then it blew up and is now approaching 200,000 views. I imagine you’ve already read it, but have a gander if not — at least for the pics!
The rise and rise of the Chinese plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market is unstoppable, with yet another record performance in December. A total of 102,000 new passenger PEVs were registered last month, up 130% year over year. Yes, that was just December, and it pulled the year-to-date count to over 600,000 units, up 71% compared to 2016.
