The European Car of the Year is not the “Best Buy” advice of a consumer organization. It does not put a sticker on Product X in category Y in price class Z. It does not help customers to choose between the myriad offerings on the market by positioning something as the cheapest, coolest, easiest, safest, healthiest, or greenest product they can buy.
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.
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.
The Dutch plug-in vehicle (PEV) market grew 51% in February, to 3,685 plug-in registrations. So, after a light hangover (-2% year over year/YoY) in January, the Dutch plug-in market is back on track, with last month’s PEV share at 12%, pulling the year-to-date PEV share to 9.4%.
The German plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market started the year on fire, jumping 128% year over year (YoY), to a record 16,131 registrations. That smashed the previous record (12,026 units) set last October, so it seems the German locomotive has (finally) been set in motion.
With a sales rush in the last days of 2019, one would imagine January would bring a big hangover for the plug-in vehicle market. But turns out, it hasn’t. Yes, the Dutch plug-in market was down 2% year over year (YoY), to 3,184 registrations, but because the overall market fell even more (-6% YoY), the plug-in vehicle (PEV) share (7.2%, 4.3% for fully electric vehicles alone) actually grew compared to 12 months ago (6.9% in January 2019). So … why is this happening?
The German plug-in electric passenger vehicle market ended the year on fire, with registrations more than doubling in December, to 11,328 registrations.
The French plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market registered a record 7,250 units in December, +28% year over year (YoY), a new all time record. That was thanks to leader Renault Zoe (2,097 units, a new year best), which seems to be past the worse of the production ramp up, and the Tesla Model 3, which moved 1,250 units, its best result ever in France. Additionally, plug-in hybrid (PHEV) sales more than doubled YoY, helping to set the record score.
Led by the Tesla Model 3, December had an amazing 22,983 plug-in registrations, a three-fold increase compared to the same month last year, finally beating one of the oldest records in modern EV history, the 15,879 units sold in the Netherlands in December 2016.
Human brains are funny. We have a very hard time seeing past this moment. Even when we plan for things, it’s hard to genuinely put our minds in the place we’re planning to be in the mid to long term.
