Czech Republic December 2016

BMW i3 #1 in slow year

The EV Market in the Czech Republic was down 14% in 2016, with 362 units sold this year, with the EV Share down to 0.14%, a 0.04% drop from the 0.18% of 2015.

Looking at the models ranking, the BMW i3 won its third consecutive Best Seller title, profiting from the investment BMW made then.

In a distant Second Place was the Tesla Model S, followed by the Nissan Leaf, with the last year Bronze Medalist, the VW e-Up! ending just outside the podium, in Fourth, with 23 units.

Tied with the German hatch is the surprise of the year, the Volvo XC90 PHEV was also Fourth, confirming the popularity of the Swedish plug-in SUV in Europe.

Good performances came across the BMW stable, with the X5 PHEV ending in #6, tied with its 330e relative, while the six-figure sports car BMW i8 did an honorable Eighth Position, thus making four BMW's in the Top 10.

On the other side, all Volkswagen Group brands regressed, with two models in particular sinking: The VW e-Golf dropped from #5 and 33 registrations in 2015, to #14 with seven units, while the Audi A3 e-Tron did even worse, going from 28 sales in 2015 to just...one unit.

In the brands ranking, BMW (41% share) won another manufacturers title, its third since 2014, winning the laurels of believing in this market when no else one did, while behind it, a strange event happened, with Tesla ending in Second, with 50 units and 14% share, followed by Volkswagen and Nissan, both tied in Third with...49 units.

Looking at regular hybrids, this class Best Sellers are above plug-ins, with four Toyota hybrids (Auris H. - 41 units; RAV4 H. - 27; C-HR H. - 24; Yaris H. - 23) selling more in December than the best selling plug-in (i3 - 16 units).

Pl	Czech Republic	Dec.	YTD	%	'15Pl
1 2 3	BMW i3 Tesla Model S Nissan Leaf	16 4	88 40 37	24 11 10	1 2 4
4	Volvo XC90 T8		23	6	N/A
4 6 6 8	Volkswagen e-Up! BMW X5 40e BMW 330e BMW i8	2 2 4	23 20 20 13	6 6 6 4	3 16 N/A 7
9 9 11 12 13 14 14 14 17 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 25 25 25 25	Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia Volkswagen Passat GTE Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Tesla Model X Mercedes GLE500e Volkswagen Golf GTE Volkswagen e-Golf BMW 225xe Active Tourer Kia Soul EV Mercedes S500e Audi Q7 e-Tron Kia Optima PHEV Kia Soul EV Peugeot iOn Peugeot Partner EV Porsche Cayenne Plug-in Audi A3 e-Tron BMW 740e Mercedes GLC350e Hyundai Ioniq Electric	2 2 1 1 1	12 12 11 10 8 7 7 7 6 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1	3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0	9 N/A 10 N/A N/A 19 5  N/A 10 13 N/A N/A N/A 19 19 16 6 N/A N/A N/A
TOTAL		35	362	100

Source: sda-cia.cz

Czech Republic June 2015

"This market is too small for both of us, Leaf!"

BMW i3 has got company

The Czech Republic EV Market is going at record pace, with 64 units (And i believe a few more Outlanders and e-Golfs, but i only have data from single models), with the EV Share at 0,06% numbers that will easily outpace the 2012 records (98 registrations for the whole year, 0,05% Share).

If in 2014 it looked that only BMW had interest in this market, holding 96% share, this year Nissan decided to return (It was the Best Seller in 2013) and with only half the year passed, it has already outsold its '13 full year sales number (23 vs 16), so despite the strong competition from BMW, the Nissan Leaf is settling quite comfortably here, contributing for the growth of EV market far more efficiently than Opel did last year (Only two units in H1), and even upsetting the i3 leadership from time to time.

As for BMW, the little i3 sold 28 units, beating its 2014 First Half performance significantly, but the real surprise was the larger BMW i8, with 13 units, it is already outselling the 10 units sold in 2014!

Czech Rep.	H1  '15	H1 '14
BMW i3	28	18
Nissan Leaf	23	N/A
BMW i8	13	N/A
TOTAL	64	20

Czech Republic December 2014

"It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it"

BMW's Turf (Or is it?...)

The Czech Republic EV Market recovered in 2014, with 71 units, but it is still behind 2012, that with 98 registrations is still the Best Selling year.

In 2014 it looked that only BMW had some interest in this market, holding 96% of the market, but there are two unknown variables in this market, VW and especially Mitsubishi, as the numbers available don't brake data by fuel source, one wonders how big are these two in the market...

Looking at what we've got, the little i3 sold 58 units, beating the record held by the Peugeot iOn, which sold 52 units back in 2012, but the real surprise was the larger BMW i8, selling 10 units over the year, five of them in December, making it the monthly Best-Seller!

Czech Rep.	2014	2013
BMW i3	58	3
BMW i8	10	N/A
Opel Ampera	3	2
TOTAL	71	37

Markets Roundup Full Year 2012

Fisker Karma in Monaco

With most of 2012 data in, it's time for a roundup on some EV markets:

- The three countries with highest EV share are Norway (No surprises here) with 3,09%, followed by Estonia (Thanks to Mitsubishi) at 2,35% and finally in third there's the Netherlands with 0,98%;

- The Renault Twizy was #1 in eight countries, hitting a sweet spot in Central and Southern Europe;

- Renault sold some 600 units of the Fluence ZE in Israel, included in the Better Place battery swapping project and at 0,37% share it was not a bad start, but the question is if in 2013 they will resist the black hole that is becoming the Better Place deal;

- Nissan has sold 89 units of the Nissan Leaf in Hong Kong, meaning that Nissan sold more Leaf's there than in the whole of China;

- Where else in the world other than Monaco would the Fisker Karma be a best seller? That's right, the Cadillac Escalade of the  Plug-In market was the second best selling electric vehicle in Monaco, just behind the Renault Twizy. With this in mind, i'm assuming that Tesla will be the best seller this year;

- As proof that the EV market is a fast changing market, Finland had three different leaders in the last three years, starting with the Think City in 2010, followed in '11 by the Citröen C-Zero and the Nissan Leaf last year;

- The I-Miev family has a thing for finding new markets for electric cars and losing them for others in the following years, for example the Mitsubishi I-Miev started the EV market in 2009 in it's home market, being the best selling electric model that year and in 2010, before losing the crown to the Leaf in 2011.  The same thing happened in Germany (#1 in 2010 and 2011, #3 in 2012), Spain (#1 in 2011, #9 in 2012), Switzerland (#1 in 2010 and 2011, #4 in 2012), Monaco (#1 in 2011, #6 in 2012) and Ireland (#1 in 2010, #4 in 2011 and 2012). In 2012 the I-Miev family started to sell cars in new markets like  the Czech Republic (78 units), Iceland (9), Poland (13) and Colombia (28). It remains to be seen in 2013 how many of these will still crown a I-Miev member as best seller...

Czech Republic Full Year 2012

Speaking of unexpected places, sometimes EV sales come from where you least expect like is the case of Estonia or Israel.

EV sales in the Czech Republic isn't that unexpected, but it isn't also one of the first countries that comes to mind when you think of electric cars, but it has a small one.

With only 98 units sold this year, the EV phenomenon is still in its infancy, but it could grow significantly in the next years, especially if local manufacturer Skoda joins the Plug-In offensive that their VW bosses are planning in the next two to three years. For now, the I-Miev family dominates thanks to their Peugeot and Citröen sisters, respectably #1 and #2 in the ranking.

Czech Rep.	YTD	%
Peugeot iOn	52	53
Citröen C-Zero	26	27
Opel Ampera	9	9
Skoda Octavia EV	10	10
Fisker Karma	1	1
TOTAL	98	100

Source: sda-cia.cz