For several years now, I’ve felt both guilt and embarrassment for not driving an EV. I wonder how many other CleanTechnica readers who don’t own an EV yet, who own an ICE (internal combustion engine) car, feel similarly.
The Dutch plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market had another positive month in May, with 2,688 plug-in vehicle registrations — up 193% year over year (YoY). That translated into a PEV share of 7.3% on the broader auto market. The year-to-date (YTD) count is now up to 15,537 units, with the 2019 PEV share at 8.3%, well above the 6% of last year.
As every Tesla driver knows, electric vehicles are more reliable, more convenient, cheaper to operate, safer and more fun to drive than legacy vehicles. However, the most important reason for the transition to electric driving is to reduce the use of polluting petroleum products. As EVs proliferate, consumption of gasoline is expected to fall. It’s still very early days, but that trend is already observable.
There is no other reason for me to report on the Dutch sales than that it is my home market, and I have the numbers.
The European passenger plug-in vehicle market scored some 37,000 registrations in April, growing 30% compared to the same period last year, a good performance considering that the overall market is still in the red (-1% in April).
While Nissan’s executives deny it, many in the automotive media and even Carlos Ghosn himself think his arrest was orchestrated by Nissan executives to prevent a merger with Renault. If this is true, then the executives have indeed shot themselves in the foot.
A company operating in Southwest Florida (St. Petersburg and Fort Myers), Nickel Ride, has found a new way to turn the advantages of electric vehicles into a competitive advantage. Just download the Nickel Ride app at either the Apple or Google store and request a ride for free.
I don’t have a ton to write about this, but the visualization below is a must see. Mase Goslin had some free time on his hands, pulled 2012–2019 US EV sales data from InsideEVs, and created the following visualization with the data:
Oil-bought politicians, Tesla shorts, online trolls, and others with an axe to grind against EVs are always telling us things like “EVs are toys for the rich” — whenever convenient to their arguments. While it’s true that top-of-the-line Tesla vehicles are well over $100,000, there’s a small independent dealer in conservative Arizona proving that not only can EVs be affordable, but they are good for business!
The German plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market continued on the right track in April, having scored 7,771 registrations. Fully electric vehicles (BEVs) grew at a faster pace, +50% year over year (YoY), than plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), +14% YoY, contributing to an all-electric share in 2019 of 67%, far above the 2018 result of 53%.
