Latest German plug-in data reveals, what has long been expected, a return of the Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV). According to KBA data and schmidtmatthias.de research, April witnessed the first successive German monthly year-on-year rise in PHEV new registrations, following six successive monthly falls impacted by a lack of supply partially due to a switch to the WLTP test cycle in September 2018.
A likely reduction in supply to push as much demand to 2020 in order to help reduce fleet average emissions is also a likely reason for reduced supply according to industry insiders. PHEVs are likely to reduce fleet average CO2 emissions dramatically thanks to their on paper CO2 emissions of on average 50-70g/km and significantly under the 95g/km average target. With a rally of PHEV product launches set for the second half of this year and unrestricted volume deliveries expected to roll-out in 2020, volumes for these models are expected to soar, with schmidtmatthias.de data expecting to see 2020 PHEV volumes more than double over 2019 levels next year. During the opening 4-months of this year the number of PHEV models, including pre-production models - indicating an imminent launch - reached 40 models, compared to 30 BEV models registered. Twelve month rolling PHEV deliveries last peaked at just under 35,000 up to August 2018, the final month before the WLTP cycle entered into force. The corresponding time period up to April 2019 totalled 29,725. A full report is available on request...