World Top 20 June 2015 (Special Edition)

How high will it go?

Models - Tesla Model S #1 for the First Time

With 41.680 plug-ins sold in June, the global market for electric cars almost broke the 42.720 units sold last March, but even so, it is a 37% increase over the same month, which is nothing to be ashamed of, and with 204.256 units sold this year, the 400k sales by the end of the year looks like a given.

An important event this month was the first Monthly Best Seller Title for the Tesla Model S, after two months menacing the Nissan Leaf lead, it has finally achieved the top spot, ending a 18 month streak of consecutive #1's from the Nissan Leaf and marking the first #1 for a Tesla model in six(!) years. 

There were memorable sales from several models, like the Renault Zoe (2.498 units, year best), BAIC E-Series EV (1.506, year best), VW Golf GTE (1.705, new personal best), Zotye Cloud EV (1.214, new pb) or the BYD Qin, that with 4.015 units sold, not only secured another consecutive sales record (The 18th), but also managed to climb to #3 in June's monthly ranking AND is now menacingly close to the current bronze medalist Mitsu Outlander PHEV. Another impressive stat from the BYD plug-in, twelve months ago the Qin was selling 1.055 units, now it is over 4.000...«

Besides the mentioned Third spot race, there were other points of interest, the R240 fueled Renault Zoe got to climb one position to #6, changing positions with the VW e-Golf, while VW's PHEV had the opposite performance, climbing one position to #8. A curious fact, if we count the two Golf's together, VW's compact becomes the best selling european plug-in, not bad considering they only landed last year...

Comparing this enlarged Top 20 from the first half of this year, with the situations a year ago, we can envision several changes:



- The Nissan Leaf is still Number One, but lost 8% Share (20% then vs 12% now), and has its position now in danger;

- The Model S sales are up 7k, making it a credible contender to the Best Selling EV title;

- Chinese cars continue to evolve, not only the Qin is up several positions, but right now their lineup in the Top 20 has increased from 5 to 7;

- The german models have also increased their presence, if twelve months ago there were two (BMW i3 and VW e-Up!) representatives, the number has now doubled to four (BMW i3, VW e-Golf and Golf GTE, Audi A3 e-Tron;

- The Renault Zoe is experiencing a second coming this year, with sales up 143%, the same can be said about the veteran BYD e6, which has seen its sales double regarding last year. 

-  On the other hand, the two laggards here are two veterans, the Chevy Volt sales are down 33% and the Prius Plug-In does even worse, down 62% and losing 11(!) positions in the ranking.

Because this is a half year edition, the ranking includes cars from #11 to #20, where we can see some interesting facts, like the Audi A3 e-Tron already showing up in #12 (Will we see it in the Top 10 soon?),  #14 Ford Fusion Energi far away from last year performances (It ended in #8 last year), with two newcomers at the bottom in #17 we have the Fiat 500e and in #18 the Roewe 550 PHEV, both models have had a welcoming reception from consumers, let's see if their parent companies really get behind them and make them the sales hits they deserve to be.

Finally, a mention to segments not represented in the Top 20, the small Mitsu Minicab Miev Pick-Up continues to be the sole model in the Pick-up truck segment, with symbolic sales (105 units this year), in the Full-size Luxury (F-Segment), the Porsche Panamera (645 units) is still beating the Merc S-Class by a portion of 2 to 1 units, the BMW i8 (2.209 units) continues to put to shame the Cadillac ELR (614) in the Sports Car class and finally, the LCV's have an interesting race between the Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia twins and the Renault Kangoo ZE, if the french vehicle never had real competition until last year, Nissan's van changed all that, the japanese is now ahead by 397 units (2.016 vs 1.619), but the french is on the rebound and in June alone it has shortened the distance by 175 units, so this particular race still has a lot to run until the end of the year.

Pl	WORLD	June	2015	%	'14Pl
1	Nissan Leaf	4.711	25.068	12	1
2	Tesla Model S	4.994	21.552	11	3
3	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	2.111	17.104	8	2
4	BYD Qin	4.015	16.477	8	7
5	BMW i3	1.564	10.554	5	6
6	Renault Zoe	2.498	8.528	4	9
7	Volkswagen e-Golf	1.180	7.150	4	21
8	Volkswagen Golf GTE	1.705	6.604	3	33
9	Chevrolet Volt (1)	1.389	6.362	3	4 -4k
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	BAIC E-Series EV Zotye E20 Audi A3 e-Tron Ford C-Max Energi Ford Fusion Energi Zotye Cloud EV Toyota Prius Plug-In Fiat 500e Roewe 550 PHEV Chery QQ EV BYD e6	1.506 776 934 772 742 1.214 643 363 689 510 506	5.803 4.913 4.577 4.508 4.363 4.347 4.196 3.394 3.321 3.208 2.901	3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1	16 13 36 11 8 N/A 5 25 34 12 20
	TOTAL	41.680	204.265

Manufacturers - BYD on Fire

In the Manufacturers ranking, unsurprisingly, BYD is going from strength to strength, selling 5.037 units, beating again Nissan in June and surpassing Mitsubishi in the YTD ranking, ending the month in #3.

Nissan continues in #1, but the competition is far closer than in June '14, the japanese carmaker lost 7% share since then and is now being closely followed by Tesla (Up one position to #2) and BYD. Mitsubishi, on the other hand, dropped two positions to #4 in just one month and it's better that the restyled Outlander PHEV rebounds their sales soon, or else the #5 Volkswagen could start to have them in its sight.

#7 Renault had a great performance last month, now being less than 1.000 units behind the #6 BMW, if the french manufacturer continues to push on sales, it might give BMW some headaches in the future.

Looking below the usual Top 10, we see some newcomers in the ranking: Audi in #12, Roewe in #15 and especially Mercedes in #17 appear in the Top 20 and promise to rise even further in the ranking, while others became notable absenses, like Volvo (#21) or Smart (#22). Kia is #23, but it has already sold more units in these six months than in the whole of 2014, so expect it to rise to a Top 20 position until year end.

Pl	WORLD	June	2015	%	'14Pl
1	Nissan	4.955	27.084	13	1
2	Tesla	4.994	21.552	11	3
3	BYD	5.037	20.409	10	7
4	Mitsubishi	2.573	19.393	9	2
5	Volkswagen	3.175	15.402	8	11
6	BMW	1.991	13.127	6	9
7	Renault	3.396	12.256	6	8
8	Ford	1.666	9.719	5	5
9	Zotye	1.990	9.263	5	13
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	Chevrolet BAIC Audi Toyota Geely-Kandi Roewe Fiat Mercedes Porsche Chery JAC	1.627 1.523 950 643 1.074 698 363 1.036 556 986 1.015	8.192 5.892 4.624 4.212 4.097 3.461 3.394 3.382 2.936 2.696 2.591	4 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1	4 15 24 6 10 21 18 23 17 12 22

(1) - Includes Holden Volt, Opel and Vauxhall Ampera;

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What do Taylor Swift’s legs and QNX Acoustics have in common?

By Megan Alink, Marketing Communications Director for Automotive

OK, so at first blush, nothing. Let me explain.

It starts with a number. A really big number. Think “40 million” — because I recently learned that that’s how many units of our QNX Acoustics for Voice product have shipped to date. Wow!

QNX Acoustics for Voice is a complete signal processing software solution for automotive voice communications, based on production-proven acoustics technology. It’s designed specifically to meet the acoustics challenges unique to the in-car environment, sets a new benchmark in hands-free quality, and, very importantly, supports the rigorous requirements of smartphone connectivity. Check out the product page for more information.

Obviously 40 million is a number worth talking about, so what’s the first thing that any marketing writer worth her salt does? She looks for an analogy to help put this impressive number into context. Number of steps it takes to go around the world? Population of California? Google comes in handy in such situations and eventually, it delivered the perfect informational nugget: Taylor Swift’s legs are reportedly insured for $40 million. What does this have to do with automotive acoustics? Well, clearly Ms. Swift’s legs are critical to her success as an entertainer, and, as anyone in the business of sound and noise knows, our acoustics engineers couldn’t make their magic — and achieve 40 million units sold — without their finely honed hearing. The conclusion is obvious. We must insure their ears for $40 million as well. All in favour?

Congratulations to everyone who has played a role in putting this ground breaking technology into the hands (and ears) of our customers, and many thanks to those customers for helping QNX achieve this amazing milestone.

With thanks to Phil Hetherington and Len Layton for the idea…

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Japan June 2015

Mitsu Minicab Miev Truck: Best Selling Electric Pick-Up Truck. In the World. Respect.

Waiting for Better Days

Another negative month (The third in a row), with sales in June down 49% YoY, and only 11k sales YTD, you have to go back three years to see such low numbers in this market.

Looking at the YTD models ranking, the positions are stable, with the Leaf once more in #1, with sales down just 34% regarding March '14, while the #2 Outlander PHEV in Japan was down 87%(!), to just 221 units. Mitsu is hoping the restyled plug-in SUV can rebound sales and end a 16 month leadership of the Nissan Leaf. Hopefully the new Outlander can sign the beggining of a recovery soon...    

Looking at the brands ranking, Nissan (50% Share) has a large advantage over Mitsubishi (32%), and is most certain to win the manufacturers title for the fourth time, the third in a row (Nissan won in 2011, 2013 and 2014).

Pl	Japan	June	2015	%	Pl '14
1	Nissan Leaf	893	5.491	48	1
2	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	221	2.927	26	2
3	Toyota Prius Plug-In e)	125	990	9	3
4	BMW i3 e)	100	600	5	6
5	Tesla Model S e)	25	364	3	7
6 7 8 9 10 10	Mitsubishi I-Miev Mitsubishi Minicab Miev Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia Mit. Minicab Miev Truck Honda Accord Plug-In e) BMW i8 e)	59 51 50 19 5 5	341 294 270 105 30 30	3 3 2 1 0 0	4 5 N/A 8 9 10
	TOTAL	1.553	11.442	100

e) Estimate

Source:http://evn.blog.eonet.jp; http://samochodyelektryczne.org/

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Markets Roundup June 2015

The (Pure) Electric Star

BEV vs PHEV

Many people have asked for a breakdown between plug-in hybrid and pure electric sales, here it is a small report regarding the most representative markets and their evolution since 2012.

	2015		2014		2013		2012
Market	BEV %	PHEV %	BEV %	PHEV %	BEV %	PHEV %	BEV %	PHEV %
World	62	38	62	38	57	43	50	50
USA	63	37	55	45	49	51	27	73
Japan	63	37	53	47	55	45	53	47
France	84	16	94	6	95	5	94	6
Norway	79	21	90	10	94	6	93	7
Germany	55	45	75	25	85	15	86	14
Netherlands	17	83	23	77	15	85	22	78
China	61	39	72	28	90	10	89	11
UK	36	64	54	46	78	22	67	33
Italy	82	18	91	9	89	11	97	3
Canada	73	27	58	42	51	49	30	70
Switzerland	75	25	71	29	88	12	71	29
Sweden	53	47	35	65	48	52	45	55
Belgium	47	53	69	31	75	25	79	21
Denmark	97	3	99	1	99	1	97	3

It is easy to see that for the moment pure electric are resisting quite well to the announced take over from plug-in hybrids, in fact, the rise of Tesla has been a boon for BEV's, just compare the 2012 global numbers with the current ones.

Looking closer to some markets, it is curious to see that the US market and Canada went from Volt PHEV predominant to (Tesla) BEV prevalent.

The other way around ocurred in the UK and Belgium, in 2013 three out of four plug-ins were pure electrics, now PHEV's are the best sellers in these markets.

The PHEV champion continues to be the Netherlands, with plug-in hybrids steady between 75-85% Share, while Denmark is all for pure electrics, with PHEV's only able to grasp 1 to 3% share.

Trends in the G8 

China is continuing to score record performances (12.810 units in June, 0,46% EV share vs 0,25% last year), with new cars showing up almost every month, last month the Chinese EV Market was only 103 units away from setting a new all time global monthly sales record, by the way, for the first time that the asian giant surpassed the US in the YTD sales (54.665 for China vs 54.177 for the USA).

The French market is also growing, it is now firmly above the 1% barrier, while the UK and Germany continue their way up, both with double digit growth rates.

The two EV champs, Netherlands and Norway, also had positive months, with the EV Share (5,94 % and 23,22% respectively), keep on being the envy of everyone else.

The only laggards on this club are the USA (0,64% this year vs 0,73% in '14) and Japan, the asian market is plunging to values of 2012 and there doesn't seem to exist signs of hope in the short term, if Japan was the Third largest EV Market in 2014 (And #1 in 2010), now is just...Seventh.

If the japanese EV sales continue to fall, this G8 could lose a member and change the name again to G7.

Forecasts in the G8

Early this year, i made some forecasts regarding this year, let's see how they stack up against the results in the first half of the year:

USA - 150.000 units/year, Leaf #1; 

Given sales are at 54.000 and the second half of they year has always stronger sales, i think the numbers can end up a tiny bit higher than the 130K, the original number now seems too optimistic. Tesla is #1 for now, but with the manufacturer focusing on getting the Model X just right, the Model S might get a production slowdown, which might mean that the leadership could end up on Nissan Leaf's lap;

China - 120.000 units/year, Qin #1.

Year Two for this market, sales continue to go above expectations, the montlhy numbers are now consistently above the 10K area, with new players coming in, new record sales are expected, so i wouldn't be surprised if sales passed the 130K line by the end of the year. The Best Selling Plug-In in China this year is and will be the Qin, no doubt about it.

Japan - 32.000 units/year, Leaf #1;

The second semester is usually better in the Japanese EV market, but even so, with sales around 12K, it will be hard even to be close of this forecast, the japanese EV market is losing strength and there's no one in the short term capable of lifting it up. As for models, the Leaf is some 2.000 units above the Outlander, so it has a safe margin;

Norway - 25.000 units/year, Leaf #1.

What else can we say about this market? It just keeps on pushing bounderies, year after year, month after month. With 17K sales this year, the original forecast now looks small compared to it, better to update it to some 40K. As for models, big miss here, not only the Leaf if out of the leadership, but it's down to Third, surpassed by the VW e-Golf (Leader) and the Tesla Model S (Runner-up);

France - 19.000 units/year, Zoe #1;

Sales are at 12.000 units, but with the ever-increasing sales upwards trend in France, i believe that the forecast not only will be beaten by a long shot, but the 30K hallmark is possible. Zoe is #1, of course, nothing new here;

Netherlands - 19.000 units/year, Outlander #1;

A welcome surprise, with sales at 12.000 units in the first half of the month, i think the 25K area can be achieved with relative ease. The Outlander PHEV was outclassed by the Golf GTE, and it looks the trend won't change in the second half of the year;

Germany - 20.000 units/year, German Car #1;

In this Year Two of the German Electric Car, sales continue to grow at a steady pace (10.000 units this year vs 6.000 in 2014) so the 20K shoud be achievable. A surprise in the models leadership, the Outlander PHEV is leading the pack, followed by three domestic models (VW Golf GTE, BMW i3 and Audi A3 e-Tron), each of them looking to dethrone the auslander;

UK - 20.000 units/year, Outlander PHEV #1.

Another Year Two, sales continue to grow, with numbers already in the 15K area, so i wouldn't be surprised if sales reached  some 30K by the end of the year. The Mitsu Outlander PHEV continues to be the Best Seller by a long shot, doubling sales of the #2 Nissan Leaf.

Global EV Share leaders 

A year ago, i was announcing that for the first time there were five markets above the 1% EV share hallmark, now the number has risen to nine:

1. Norway - 23,22% (14,49% a year ago)

2. Netherlands - 5,94% (4,58%)
    California - 2.8% (3.2%)
3. Hong Kong - 2,58% (0,46%)

4. Sweden - 2,16% (1,52%)

5. Iceland - 2,04% (2,71%)

6. Switzerland - 1,42% (0,75%)

7. Denmark - 1,24% (0,88%)
8. France - 1,19% (0,91%)
9. UK - 1,01% (0,56%)


Besides these, EV Shares are up in Germany (0.60% vs 0.44%), Belgium (0.73% vs 0.44%), as well as Ireland (0.47% vs 0,27%) and Portugal (0,35% vs 0,25%).

There are also big EV Share dips, besides the aforementioned case of Japan, Estonia is also down sharply, this year it has just 0,35% Share, when last year ended with 1,57%. Does anybody know the reason for this sales freeze in the baltic country?

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Range Rover Evoque prices: UK vs Malaysia

Recently met an old friend after 18 long years. We were university mates and both of us ended up in the UK in quite different occupations. However, despite being only about 100 miles apart we were unable to meet up because of something or the other.

It was quite ironic that we finally met up in Malaysia, around 9000 miles away from the UK. Anyway, we got to talking about cars like car lovers usually do and the cars we drive. My friend recently bought the Ranger Rover Evoque, which coincidentally also happens to be my dream car.

We were discussing car prices and how the Evoque is quite out of my league with prices starting at RM413,888 (without insurance).  Source: Paul Tan.

My friend was visibly shocked as the cost in the UK was around £30K (OTR). That's considered quite a handsome even for a luxury brand. However, it translates to about RM180K at the current exchange rates, which means that we are paying more than double the price of the Evoque here in Malaysia as compared to the UK. 

With that amount, I can buy a 2-sty Terrace/Link House 3 bedroom house near my office in Semenyih, Selangor. So literally the Ranger Rover Evoque is a house on wheels. 

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Code caching

V8 uses just-in-time compilation (JIT) to execute Javascript code. This means that immediately prior to running a script, it has to be parsed and compiled - which can cause considerable overhead. As we announced recently, code caching is a technique that lessens this overhead. When a script is compiled for the first time, cache data is produced and stored. The next time V8 needs to compile the same script, even in a different V8 instance, it can use the cache data to recreate the compilation result instead of compiling from scratch. As a result the script is executed much sooner.

Code caching has been available since V8 version 4.2 and not limited to Chrome alone. It is exposed through V8’s API, so that every V8 embedder can take advantage of it. The test case used to exercise this feature serves as an example of how to use this API.

When a script is compiled by V8, cache data can be produced to speed up later compilations by passing v8::ScriptCompiler::kProduceCodeCache as an option. If the compilation succeeds, the cache data is attached to the source object and can be retrieved via v8::ScriptCompiler::Source::GetCachedData. It can then be persisted for later, for example by writing it to disk.

During later compilations, the previously produced cache data can be attached to the source object and passed v8::ScriptCompiler::kConsumeCodeCache as an option. This time, code will be produced much faster, as V8 bypasses compiling the code and deserializes it from the provided cache data.

Producing cache data comes at a certain computational and memory cost. For this reason, Chrome only produces cache data if the same script is seen at least twice within a couple of days. This way Chrome is able to turn script files into executable code twice as fast on average, saving users valuable time on each subsequent page load.

Posted by Yang Guo, Software Engineer

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Europe June 2015 (Top 30)

A Rising Star?

Zoe Edition

With some 16.100 units, the European EV market had its second best month ever, with an 80% improvement YoY, with the 79k sold in the first half of the year, it looks that last year record result (100k) will be achieved by next August. Not bad, eh?

Looking at the monthly models ranking, the Renault Zoe made a brilliant result, selling 2.487 units (Year Best), almost reaching the #2 Nissan Leaf in the YTD Chart.

As for the rest of the monthly ranking, both the Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf had positive YoY results, making three BEV's in the Top 5, while VAG's plug-in stars continue to impress: Both the Golf GTE and A3 e-Tron hit new personal records (1.705 units for the first, 931 for the second), meaning both will be major threats for the established players in the near future.

Final mention for the good performance of the Renault and Mercedes models, if the Zoe was #1 for the first time this year, both the Twizy and Kangoo ZE also hit year best performances, while on the german side, the B-Class continues its slow but steady sales increase (Record 363 units sold) and the C350e Plug-in Hybrid (363 units, a new record) was just 30 units below the D-Segment leader, the V60 Plug-In, and now looks ready to take on the swedish and become the leader in that niche.

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Renault Zoe	2.487
2	Tesla Model S	2.099
3	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	1.806
4	Volkswagen Golf GTE	1.705
5	Nissan Leaf	1.468

Looking at the YTD ranking, the Golf GTE climbed another step, it is now #5, switching positions with its e-Golf brother, the Renault Kangoo ZE also climbed one position to #11, dropping the VW e-Up! to #12, considering that the german city car already lost six positions regarding last year, it would be a good idea for Volkswagen to reconsider the price and provide a healthy rebate to it.

In the second half of the ranking, the Kia Soul EV jumped four positions to #14, thanks to a record month (373 sales), the Merc B-Class ED also took the time to climb, up two positions to #15, the same number of positions that it's poshier brother C350e climbed, up from #21 to #19....

The Loser of the Month award went to the BMW i8, down four positions from #14 to #18, selling just 111 units, its worst result in 10(!) months...

Looking at the brands ranking, Volkswagen's armada (Five models, the largest lineup) recovered even more ground to the leader Mitsubishi, both brands are separated by just 232 units in the YTD ranking and it looks that July will witness VW conquering Europe's EV Manufacturers Throne.

As for the Third Place, Renault distanced itself from its japanese cousin, Nissan, now a thousand sales away.

We now have an enlarged version of the ranking, covering the 30 best-selling EV's in Europe, allowing us to welcome the Mercedes S500e PHEV in #26, the Ford C-Max Energi in #27, or to salute the return to our radar of the Opel Ampera (Yes, it's still barely alive), in #30. 

Pl	Europe	June	2015	%	'14Pl
1	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	1.806	13.712	17	1
2	Nissan Leaf	1.468	8.633	11	2
3	Renault Zoe	2.487	8.479	11	3
4	Tesla Model S	2.099	7.382	9	4
5	Volkswagen Golf GTE	1.705	6.604	8	22
6	Volkswagen e-Golf	887	5.632	7	9
7	BMW i3	720	4.738	6	5
8	Audi A3 e-Tron	931	4.554	6	19
9	Volvo V60 Plug-In	417	2.402	3	7
10	Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia	184	1.614	2	12
11	Renault Kangoo ZE	415	1.611	2	8
12	Volkswagen e-Up!	274	1.595	2	6
13 14 15 16 17	Porsche Cayenne Plug-In Kia Soul EV Mercedes B-Class ED Renault Twizy Smart Fortwo ED	327 373 363 239 177	1.486 1.294 1.146 1.138 1.132	2 2 1 1 1	28 23 29 11 10
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30	BMW i8 Mercedes C350e Plug-In Peugeot iOn Bolloré Blue Car Citröen C-Zero Mitsubishi I-Miev Porsche Panamera Plug-In Toyota Prius Plug-In Mercedes S500e Plug-In Ford C-Max Energi Goupil Peugeot Partner EV Opel Ampera	111 387 149 90 91 53 40 38 44 90 38 26 15	1.116 760 571 477 428 404 324 318 308 224 210 156 150	1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	15 N/A 21 13 20 17 18 14 31 N/A 24 25 16
	TOTAL	16.100	78.937

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