More than 1.500 units were sold last month in the French EV market, twice as much as the same month last year, allowing the EV Share to jump to 0,88%, fractionally behind last year result (0,91%), with the sovereign leader Renault Zoe set to launch soon the R240 (As in 240 kms range) version, the prospects seem bright and maybe it will be this year that the market will surpass the 1% barrier.
Looking at the monthly best sellers, there are several reasons to be optimistic, with the quasi-eternal leader Renault Zoe hitting 762 sales, which compares favorably regarding with the performance a year ago (only 205), the same can be said about the runner-up Nissan Leaf (161 units last month vs 94 a year ago) and the #5 BMW i3 (69 vs 39), all while the VW Golf GTE continues to impress, selling 79 units and imposing itself as the best selling foreigner and PHEV in the ranking. In the Top 9 positions, there is only one ugly duck that has been watching its sales go down, that model is none other than the two time (2011 and 2012) Best-Seller Of the Year, the Renault Kangoo ZE, with 120 sales, it is down 31% regarding a year ago and a whopping 60% if we look back two years! After fixing the Zoe, Renault really needs to focus on its LCV electric offering, that is if it wants to keep its Global Best Selling Electric LCV Title away from the Nissan e-NV200...
Looking at the YTD ranking, the Nissan Leaf climbs to #2, while the Smart Fortwo ED drops four positions to #10, at the same time two german cars rise to the Top 10, with the i3 in #8 and the Audi A3 e-Tron in #9, the former looks to follow the success path of its Golf GTE cousin, already selling 54 units in only its second month in the market.
In what was always known as a pure electric loving market, plug-in hybrids are making themselves known this year, with their share doubling from the 6% made last year to the current 13%, probably meaning that the current growth trend is helped by the adherence of more mainstream consumers going for PHEV's instead of BEV's, something i think will happen more frequently during the year.
