The most significant push was for BEVs: 97.7 percent more than in Q2 2018.
Some may claim, with some logic, that it is easy to present incredible growth rates when your numbers are ordinarily low. That is still true for ECVs – electrically-chargeable vehicles – in Europe, but it amazing nonetheless to see how they are increasing their share. In Q2 2019, ECVs grew 35.6 percent, with BEVs presenting a 97.7 percent increase.
ECVs went from 72,653 units in Q2 2018 to 98,553 in Q2 2019. That is just 2.4 percent of all new car sales in Europe, which amounted to 4,109,573 units in that period.
Of these 98,553 units, 63,589 vehicles were BEVs. In short, 64.5 percent of all ECVs. The other 34,964 cars – or 35.5 percent – were plug-in hybrids.
Comparing quarters, BEVs had a 97.7 percent increase related to the same period in 2018. PHEVs had a 13.6 percent drop. A shred of evidence that BEVs will probably skip any transition towards electric mobility in Europe.
Conventional combustion-engined vehicles have nothing to celebrate. Especially diesel-powered cars. They had a 16.4 decrease in Q2 2019. And there is no sign that things will be better since the first semester presented an even higher drop: 17.2 percent fewer diesel cars sold.
Gas-powered automobiles had a tiny increase in Q2 2019, or 1.7 percent to be more precise. Some of the sales diesel vehicles lost were probably to these Otto-engined vehicles since sales are 2.5 percent higher in the first semester of 2019.
Impressive percentages of growth are certainly encouraging for electric car manufacturers. But the fact is that the excellent news for EVs will be when the market share as a whole gets bigger.
If Volkswagen fulfills its plans to sell 22 million EVs by 2029, that alone will help increase the piece of the pie for electric vehicles. And we have not even mentioned Tesla.