2016 Audi Q2 Specs, Features, Performance Review

2016 Audi Q2 Specs, Features, Performance Review - The supermini hybrid business sector is blasting. Advanced by the Nissan Juke, the most recent expansion will originate from Audi as the 2016 Audi Q2 car. With its 'skimming edge' C-column, a lot of brilliant trims and completes and a young business sector to speak to, the 2016 Audi Q2 review is the thing that Audi portray as a Trojan Horse -

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NXP i.MX 8 DV — alive and kicking

The team at NXP have really impressed me with how quickly they were able to bring up the new i.MX 8 DV. If you haven’t heard about it, the DV is a development vehicle that NXP introduced in advance of their upcoming family of i.MX 8 processors, and this thing is a beast.

Mapping closely to the upcoming production device, the DV sports dual A72 and quad A53 cores, along with a host of M-cores and dual Vivante GC7000XSVX GPUs. Combined graphics processing jumps sixfold over the previous generation of i.MX devices. The device also has a strong hardware isolation story: 16 partitions are available to map the various hardware blocks on the device and guarantee isolation between them. This architecture greatly facilitates virtualization and even the ability to partition hardware independent of a hypervisor.

Why is this so great? Chips this powerful can span multiple displays in the vehicle. You could have an infotainment system and a digital instrument cluster running on a single i.MX8. Because you don’t have to worry about virtualizing a single GPU (which is quite the challenge), you can carve up the chip’s graphics and processing power to isolate the infotainment system from the cluster. This, in turn, minimizes your scope of certification. Achieving ISO 26262 for a cluster is daunting enough; achieving it for a complex infotainment system as well is off the scale.

This device marks a change in how QNX Software Systems and NXP work together. For the first time NXP is bringing up a new chip on the QNX OS and Linux in parallel. Usually, Linux come first, but not this time. I am, needless to say, delighted by this level of cooperation between our two companies.

At FTF, NXP demonstrated the i.MX 8DV, and it looked great.

Advanced 3D graphics on an i.MX 8DV.

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World Top 10 - April 2016

Models - BYD Tang #1 in April

The global EV market continues to grow at rapid pace, with almost 50.000 units delivered in April, representing a 48% growth YoY, with YTD up 46%, we are headed for a total sales number this year of around 800.000 units, not the Million a year that everybody is hoping for, but an encouraging number neverthess.

In the models ranking, the Best Seller of the Month was the BYD Tang, with 3.145 units, while the YTD leader Nissan Leaf was a close second.

With this performance, the BYD Tang climbed one position to Third Place, displacing the Mitsu Outlander PHEV to Fourth, recovering the Best Selling SUV and PHEV title. 

Below these heavy weights, the Chevrolet Volt dropped one position to #8, despite having its best April in history, GM's model is taking more time than expected to reestablish itself as a major player in the ranking, a case of just not growing fast enough or is the all-electric Bolt already making waves?

Pl	WORLD	April	YTD	%	'15Pl
1	Nissan Leaf	3.136	19.428	11	2
2	Tesla Model S	1.893	14.508	8	1
3	BYD Tang	3.145	12.366	7	8
4 5 6	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Renault Zoe BAIC E-Series EV	2.218 1.974 1.415	11.915 7.875 6.998	7 4 4	3 7 11
7	JAC i EV	2.331	6.741	4	16
8	Chevrolet Volt	2.248	6.687	4	9
9	BMW i3	1.904	6.202	3	5
10	BYD e6	2.089	5.896	3	22
	TOTAL	49.644	182.964

Manufacturers -  BYD New Number One

After a couple of months in the leadership, Nissan had to leave the throne for BYD, that with 7.592 units, made its best monthly performance in 2016 and looks set to be on top for a long time. 

Mitsubishi had a rather forgettable month, with only 2.516, and is now in plain sight of the players running for the Fifth position, with BMW, Volkswagen and even Renault, chasing each others tails. 

Final mention for JAC joining the Top 10, in...Tenth, replacing Ford.

Pl	WORLD	April	YTD	%	'15Pl
1	BYD	7.592	24.193	13	1
2	Nissan	3.323	20.446	11	4
3	Tesla	2.743	17.758	10	2
4	Mitsubishi	2.516	13.505	7	3
5 6 7	BMW Volkswagen Renault	4.504 3.502 2.626	13.093 11.449 10.280	7 6 6	6 5 8
8	BAIC	2.019	7.932	4	12
9	Chevrolet	2.672	7.738	4	11
10	JAC	2.331	6.741	4	17

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Germany EV Incentives

After a looong discussion, the German government has finally decided to lauch a decent incentives package to promote plug-in vehicles, but there aren't still any published official documents on the incentives.

An informed EVS reader tipped me on this, just an unofficial thread (http://www.goingelectric.de/forum/bmw-i3-allgemeines/abwicklung-des-umweltbonus-bei-bmw-t17054.html) where a consumer shares what he heard from a BMW dealer. The dealers received the information about the incentives on May 25th.

The incentives were decided by the German Government on May 18th and the linked thread claims that any car purchase that was made from May 19th on is eligible for the incentives. The 60.000€ is the price without taxes, this means that cars up to 71.400€ base price can profit. This cover pretty much all models, except the Tesla, XC90, Q7, i8 or the Cayenne for example.

BMW will reduce the price (Including taxes) by another 1.500€, the incentives are worth 2.000€ (Without taxes) or 2.380€ (Including taxes), so 3.880€ from BMW plus 2.000€ from the state (http://www.bafa.de/bafa/de/wirtschaftsfoerderung/elektromobilitaet/index.htmlis where the car buyer has to claim the 2.000€ from the state) makes 5.880€ in total for BMW BEV cars. The vehicle tax exemption (~50€ per year for a BEV) remains at 10 years.

If these kind of incentives are spreaded across the several EV makers, then we will probably have a huge opportunity for the German Plug-in market to grow significantly and become the largest of the Old Continent.

Last month i made an article for the EAFO newsletter, analyzing the impact of Plug-ins in the German auto market and the Picture presented wasn't very flattering, the only segment where EV's had a significant share (As in more than 1%) was the E-Segment (Audi A6, BMW 5-Series), where Plug-ins had 2.35% share, all thanks to the disruptive Tesla Model S...

The other class above 1% was the B-Segment (BMW i3, Renault Zoe), with only 1.05%, so there is a lot of room to grow, i really think/hope this will be an important move for Plug-ins in Europe and will probably be the most significant event in the 2016 Euro EV-Scene.

To be followed closely here...

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Europe April 2016

Outlander PHEV Is Back 

The European EV market had more than 16.000 registrations in March, representing a 28% increase over April 2015, with the market set to surpass the 200.000 units by year end.

Looking at the Monthly Ranking:

#1 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV – After a slow start, the Outlander PHEV is back at its usual self, winning its second consecutive Monthly Best Seller title, with 1.970 units, but YTD sales are down 12%, meaning that Mitsubishi hasn’t found a way to replace the average 300/400 units/month it had last year coming from the Dutch market. Although growing elsewhere, like Norway or Spain, the Japanese SUV will have a hard time to grow sales and remain #1 for a long time.

#2 Renault Zoe – In its best sales streak since it started, back in 2012, April signaled the 8^th consecutive time the French hatch sold more than 1.000 units, with 1.959 units, with Renault finally trying to sell actively the car, including batteries in the initial price and providing friendly discounts, this is one EV with good prospects in the near future, will it get back to #1 soon?

#3 Nissan Leaf – With the availability bottlenecks of the 30kWh part of the past, sales of the Japanese hatch were up 77% in April, with 3 out of 4 Leaf belonging to the extended-range version. With 1.860 units registered last month, one wonders for how long will the Nissan all-electric model remain in the podium, as longer range BEV’s (New BMW i3, 2017 Opel Ampera-e…) might sway away buyers from the most common EV in the world.

#4 VW Golf GTE – Thanks to the Norwegian result (602 units sold there), Volkswagen’s sporty hatch managed to reach positive ground (Up 12% YoY) in April, with 1.225 units, this recent turn of Norway to PHEV’s was fundamental to offset the sales drought in the Netherlands and continue to improve on the 2015 performance.

#5 VW Passat GTE – The surprise of the month, VW’s midsize plug-in offering managed to reach the four-digit sales area last month, with 1.012 units, a year best, with stringent emission legislation spreading across Europe, many fleet and middle-managers will switch their diesel-burners for this model, flying them through the highway and smashing the accelerator to the ground like if their future depended on it. A future Best Seller?

As you might have noticed, this post is different from usual, it is result of an agreement with CleanTechnica / EV Obsession, where this post is simultaneously published, i want to thank Zach for making this possible and we hope this will be continued in the future.   

Year-To-Date Ranking

Looking at the YTD ranking, the Mitsu Outlander PHEV is firm at the highest place in the ranking, with two closes races behind it, the Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe are running for Second Place and have only 30 units between them, while the Tesla Model S and VW Golf GTE are fighting for #4, with only 35 units separating them.

If the sprint for #2 is hard to predict what will happen, the race for #4 has a foreseeable behavior in the next couple of months: The Golf GTE will surpass the Model S in May, but then in June, the Californian model will make another 2.000-something selling month and return to the Fourth Position. It is almost so predictable as the English Premier League used to be…

Talking about Volkswagen, the german brand had a positive month, with the e-Golf up one position to #8, like the Passat GTE, also up one position to #10, while in the MPV class there is an interesting race between the leader Mercedes B250e (239 units, up one position to #16), and the #20 BMW 225xe Active Tourer, with a record month, with 292 units.

Looking at the brands ranking, the trophy bearer, Volkswagen (16%, up 1%) is holding Renault (15% share) at bay, while in Third we have Nissan, with 13% (Down 1%), trying to keep the #4 Mitsubishi (13%) and #5 BMW (12%) outside the podium.

And now a new feature on EV Sales...

...And for those who prefer the old format:

Pl	Europe	April	2016	%	'15Pl
1	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	1.970	8.376	13	1
2	Nissan Leaf	1.860	7.827	12	5
3	Renault Zoe	1.959	7.797	12	2
4	Tesla Model S	768	4.315	7	4
5	Volkswagen Golf GTE	1.225	4.280	7	3
6	BMW i3	859	3.492	5	6
7	Volvo XC90 T8	953	3.466	5	18
8	Volkswagen e-Golf	690	2.907	4	4
9 10	Audi A3 e-Tron Volkswagen Passat GTE	575 1.012	2.852 2.480	4 4	7 12
11 12	BMW X5 40e Mercedes C350e	497 258	2.073 1.518	3 2	22 11
13	Renault Kangoo ZE	374	1.320	2	13
14	Kia Soul EV	325	1.194	2	10
15	Volvo V60 Plug-In	243	1.145	2	9
16 17 18 19 20	Mercedes B250e Porsche Cayenne Plug-In BMW 330e Volkswagen e-Up! BMW 225xe Active Tourer	239 184 339 258 279	956 927 898 865 856	1 1 1 1 1	17 14 37 16 31
	TOTAL	16.323	65.218

Which format do you like best?

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Netherlands April 2016

The most coveted Volvo in the current days

Volvo reaches #1

The hangover is still showing itself in April, with sales back at just three digits (882 sales), with YoY registrations are down 43%.

But not all is bad news, as the EV Share has recovered from 2,23% in the previous month, to the current 2.44%, but it is still a long way from the 9.63% of last year.

Looking at the monthly ranking, the Monthly Best Seller award went to the Volvo XC90 PHEV, which made a year best performance of 370 units (Best Selling Luxury SUV in the overall market),  while the #3 BMW 330e has remained above the 100 deliveries, beating once again the Mercedes C350e and VW Passat GTE.

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Volvo XC90 T8	370
2	Tesla Model S	135
3	BMW 330e	117
3	BMW 225xe Active Tourer	37
5	Volkswagen Passat GTE	35

Plug-in hybrids are once again winning the majority of sales (56%), with several plug-in hybrids climbing positions in the ranking, like the BMW 330e climbing to #4, with another BMW providing great numbers, with the 225xe Active Tourer shooting six positions to #7.

On a broader look, the Tesla Model S (665 units) has maintained the Number One position in its size class, beating the usual best-sellers BMW 5-Series (481), Audi A6 (418).

Looking at the manufacturers ranking, there were major developments in the top positions, with Volvo taking over the leadership (24%), followed by Tesla (22%) and BMW (16%).

Pl	Netherlands	April	YTD	%	'15Pl
1 2	Tesla Model S Volvo XC90 T8	135 370	665 639	22 21	8 7
3	Nissan Leaf	29	309	10	13
4	BMW 330e	117	278	9	25
5 6 7 8 8 10	Volkswagen Passat GTE Mercedes C350e BMW 225xe Active Tourer Volkswagen Golf GTE Renault Zoe Volvo V60 Plug-In	35 27 37 5 24 1	224 138 92 83 83 82	7 4 3 3 3 3	6 5 17 2 14 3
11	BMW i3	85	76	2	12
12	Mercedes B250e	7	67	2	19
13	Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	10	66	2	1
14	Volkswagen e-Golf	11	33	1	28
14	Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia	2	33	1	15
14	Porsche Cayenne Plug-In	5	33	1	10
17 17 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 30	Audi A3 e-Tron Volkswagen e-Up! BMW X5 40e BMW i8 Kia Soul EV Mercedes GLE500e Renault Twizy Renault Kangoo ZE Peugeot iOn Ford C-Max Energi Porsche Panamera Plug-In Toyota Prius Plug-In Mitsubishi I-Miev Mercedes S500e Smart Fortwo ED	9 10 1 7 4 4 2 8 8 1 3 2 1 1	32 32 19 18 17 15 10 9 8 6 5 4 3 1 1	1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	4 28 11 20 24 27 28 25 N/A 9 21 22 30 18 15
	TOTAL	882	3.081	100

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