Global EV & PHEV Volumes – December 2014 and Full Year
December became the best month ever for global plug-in vehicle sales. Volumes improved year on year for every month and the final count resulted in 315 400 units of global volume for the all the vehicles and markets we are recording. This is a 50% increase over 2013. As a reference, the 2012 to 2013 increase had been 53%. Plug-in volumes are for "Light Vehicles", i.e. passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. Numbers also include ca 19000 A-segments cars in China, which count as Low Speed Vehicles by China regulations. We also have the Renault Twizy (2400 units) in the totals, legally a "quadri-cycle", but considered car-like by most users and spectators.
Pure electric vehicles gained more share
Despite the immense success of the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, pure EVs developed stronger (+61 %) than PHEV (+34% %), mainly due to the high impact of China growth in the totals. Pure electric vehicles stand now for 62% of all plug-in vehicle sales, in 2013 the share was 58%. World sales of plug-in vehicles 2014 increased by nearly 105 000 units over 2013. The global share of these 315 400 units is still just 0,36 %, based on a total vehicle market (light + heavy vehicles) of 88,2 million units.
China quadruples volume
45 000 units of the 105k growth were in China, which has surpassed Japan as the second largest market for plug-in vehicles. There is quite some margin left to the #1, USA, but this is likely to change in 2015. China grew by 325 % y-o-y, the US by 25 %. We expect an exciting race for the top position this year. The progress in Norway, U.K. and Germany was equally surprising and impressive. Regarding %-increase (not shown in the charts) New Zealand took the crown by nearly 3000 % (from 8 to 243 units). China came second (+325 %), Australia 3rd (+286 %), 4th U.K. (+271 %), 5th Denmark (+215 %), 6th Belgium (+210 %), 7th Iceland (+178 %), 8th Sweden (+162 %), 9th Estonia (+151 %) 10th Finland (+135 %) and 11th Norway (+132 %). Small changes in terms of volume in many of these markets, nevertheless encouraging. There were disappointments, too, in Japan, France and the Netherlands. Please refer to the individual country posts for explanations. Shares of plug-in vehicles differ widely by country. Norway is still the paragon for plug-in vehicle adoption, with 11,6% of 2014 sales being EVs or PHEVs. Only two more markets are above 1% in PEV share: The Netherlands and Sweden.
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