During the opening half of this year, Western Europe's BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) market remained on target to achieve more than 300,000 pure electric registrations this year, with 160,652 recorded during the opening 6-months according to the latest schmidtmatthias.de market intelligence report now available to order. Contact for more details.
Last year's full year total (198,000) is expected to be surpassed within the next two months. The schmidtmatthias.de report 2019 forecast - 335,000 - remains unchanged. Adding PHEVs to the equation, which are likely to make a comeback from 2020, new plug-in car registrations are likely to touch 0.5 million passenger cars this year or around 3.5 percent mix of the total market. The mix after 6-months was 3.2 percent. The rate of year-on-year growth during the opening 6-months of the year remained almost consistently above 80 percent, interrupted only in April with a corresponding slightly lower 70 percent growth rate.
The summer months in Europe experience a large amount of seasonality in key markets such as Norway, Sweden and France in particular and therefore July are and August this year are unlikely to maintain the high volumes seen during the opening 6-months. Comparatively high volumes will once again return in September, helped by the end of quarter boost from Tesla and the usual boost from the UK thanks to the twice yearly new registration plate introduction. UK Tesla Model 3 registrations are likely to be particularly strong in September, thanks to more right-hand-drive variants being shipped.
Giving a forward looking indication; more models are starting to trickle onto the market, with many pre-production models undergoing real-world testing in Germany currently. Over 20 different manufacturers registered at least one BEV model here this year, or more than half of all OEMs operating in Germany. Some interesting additions came from, Suzuki (4), Ssangyong (1), and BMW's 2-Series (10) according to KBA data.
Usual end of quarter Tesla boost
Another end of quarter boost from Tesla saw the Californian company outpace total registrations from Jaguar, Lexus and Porsche in Western Europe as well as retaining its volume crown, for a second consecutive quarter (see page six). Tesla accounted for 28 percent of the region's BEV market during the opening half of the year. Although 2019 could well be the last year that Tesla dominates with other OEMs bringing new models from 2020 in order to achieve CO2 fleet average targets. Volkswagen has already indicated it aims on registering 100,000 MEB based BEVs globally from 2020 as well as 50,000 non-MEB BEVs.
Comparatively slow reception for Volkswagen ID.3 orders... so far
22,000 (as at mid July) pre-orders for Volkswagen's first MEB based BEV, the ID.3, have been taken for the so-called 'First Edition', priced at €40,000 and limited to a volume of 30,000 units. Production of the Golf sized vehicle begins this year and is set to be unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, with deliveries beginning from 2020. Although these numbers are perhaps lower than expected with almost three months having passed since order books opened - during the beginning of May - it is expected that more demand is likely to come from the version priced at under €30,000 which isn't yet available.
As usual if you have any more questions regarding the progress of the market, please don't hesitate to contact me.