Automotive
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| How high will it go? |
Models - Tesla Model S #1 for the First Time
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 BAICAudi 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 |
