Netherlands January 2017

Automotive

Ioniq Electric: Surprise Leader

"...Upside down..."

"Boy you Incentives turn me / Inside out / And round and round"  

This could be the tune of last month in the Dutch EV market, with 717 units registered, sales were down 94% regarding the previous month, due to the incentives-derived stampede of December, the last month for PHEVs to have access to company car incentives.

So one would expect yet another sales hangover like in previous years, but actually registrations weren't that catastrophic, as the 717 units represent a 27% increase YoY, with BEVs doubling sales regarding January 2016, with market share reaching 1.4%.

Will we see this market shift away for good from plug-in hybrids? If that were to happen, it would be a case study on how incentives can influence plug-in markets.

Looking at the top Best Sellers, one can see that the best selling plug-in hybrid shows up only in Seventh (Volvo XC90 PHEV, 46 units), we have to go back to the Middle Ages (2011) to see the Best Selling PHEV this down in the ranking.

An eventful surprise shows up in Number One, with the Hyundai Ioniq Electric starting the year in the leadership, with 95 units, the Korean first #1 outside its home market, followed by three long range BEVs (Some more than others...), which once again proves that range matters. 

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Hyundai Ioniq Electric	95
2	BMW i3 *	88
3	Renault Zoe	70
4	Tesla Model S	65
4	Nissan Leaf	63

Looking elsewhere, while PHEV models should still have a significant portion of units that were ordered for December but were only registered in January, it is interesting to see some all-electric models coming alive, like the eight Citröen C-Zero registered, its best result in four years, or the 70 units of the Renault Zoe, its best result in three years, no doubt due to the deliveries of the ZE 40 version.

In the manufacturers ranking, things aren't that upside down as in the models ranking, last year runner-up, BMW, adapted quite well to the new environment, besides extensive, BMW's lineup proves that is also able to play in both sides of the field (BEV and PHEV) with equal efficiency, starting the year in the leadership with 17% share, followed by Tesla (16%) and Hyundai (13%).

Pl	Netherlands	Jan.	YTD	%	'16Pl
1 2	Hyundai Ioniq Electric BMW i3 *	95 88	95 88	13 12	23 14
3	Renault Zoe	70	70	10	17
4	Tesla Model S	65	65	9	5
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12	Nissan Leaf Tesla Model X Volvo XC90 PHEV Volkswagen Passat GTE Porsche Cayenne Plug-in Audi Q7 e-Tron Mercedes GLC350e Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV	63 50 46 43 20 16 15 12	63 50 46 43 20 16 15 12	9 7 6 6 3 2 2 2	13 15 3 1 22 6 31 7
12	Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia	12	12	2	16
12 15 16	Mercedes C350e BMW 225xe Active Tourer Mercedes E350e	12 11 10	12 11 10	2 2 1	4 11 10
16	Kia Soul EV	10	10	1	27
18	Mercedes B250e	8	8	1	20
18 18 21 21	Citröen C-Zero BMW X5 40e Volkswagen Golf GTE Volvo V60 Plug-In	8 8 7 7	8 8 7 7	1 1 1 1	38 26 8 9
23	Audi A3 e-Tron	6	6	1	12
23 23 26 27 27 27 30 31 32	BMW 330e Mercedes S500e Mercedes GLE500e Volkswagen e-Up! Peugeot iOn BMW 740e Toyota Prius Plug-In BMW i8 Kia Optima PHEV	6 6 5 4 4 4 3 2 1	6 6 5 4 4 4 3 2 1	1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0	2 35 30 24 34 18 25 29 21
	TOTAL	717	717	100

                   

* - 86 Bev + 2 Rex

Source: RAI Vereniging

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