April had 1,311 plug-in car registrations in the Netherlands, up 123% compared to the same period last year, pulling the year-to-date count to 6,765 units (+128%), and pulling the 2018 share slightly up, to 3.3%. Fully electric cars (BEVs) represented 88% of all PEV sales.
As the Tesla Model 3 gains significant production volume, with most of the 2018 deliveries going to US customers, other players in the US small and midsize luxury car segment look set to see their sales halved in Q3 and Q4.
The Tesla Model 3 continues to open up its lead over every other plug-in car on the US market. For all the hype about a slower than projected Model 3 production ramp up, it seems there isn’t another plug-in vehicle that comes within two laps of touching it. It sits at about triple the sales of the #2 Toyota Prius Prime (a plug-in hybrid) and nearly 4 × the sales of all 7 of BMW Group’s plug-in models combined.
After chatting with a few satisfied new owners of the Chevy Bolt this month, I thought, perhaps it is time to try for a test drive again. Last year, I gave up exploring diverse comparisons to my much appreciated all-electric 2015 Nissan LEAF. I had a hard time finding a variety of EVs at dealerships. The only companies really offering them seemed to be BMW, Nissan, Chevy, Porsche, and Tesla. So, the test drive experience was short — I tried the Volt and the Prius Prime. There simply were not other EVs available for test drives in Sarasota, Florida.
When consumers walk into a US car dealership and have a choice of buying either an electric or internal combustion engine (ICE) powered version of the same model, what percentage opt for the BEV or PHEV version? The short answer is 9.8% on average.
Good old Subaru. We don’t hear much from the company, and rightfully so. It doesn’t have much clean news to report beyond a 2004 net-zero landfill factory in North Carolina and the introduction of its hybrid CrossTech in 2013 — if you count that.
In this edition of the cleantech news roundup, we have news about the 2018 LEAF safety score, Paul Elio’s new cryptocurrency, first delivery of an Electra Meccanica Solo, an electric Aston Martin Lagonda, death by chocolate, EU plastic recycling and pesticide ban, environmental conservatism, and more.
Toyota took to the stage at the Beijing Motor Show last week to announce plans to bring 10 new electrified vehicles to the Chinese market by the end of 2020.
The Netherlands had 963 registrations in April, up 170% compared to the same period last year. That pulls the year-to-date (YTD) count to 5,472 units (+129%), while placing the 2018 share at 3.2%. Fully electric cars (BEV) represent a whopping 87% of all plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) sales.
It’s been a rough few weeks for boosters of vehicle autonomy. In March, one of Uber’s pilot autonomous vehicles killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg while she was crossing the street. A few days later, Walter Huang died when his Model X hit a highway barrier in California with the Autopilot system engaged. Mr. Huang was not the first Autopilot-related fatality: in 2016, Joshua Brown was killed in a crash while his Model S was in Autopilot mode (an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration “did not identify any defects in the design or performance” of Autopilot).
