UK Full Year 2012

2013 Nissan Leaf. Finally some nice alloys!

A bit late in the party, here's the full year sales of the UK electric market, which tripled sales regarding 2011. While that year the Nissan Leaf easily took the best seller crown, in 2012 the distance was shorter and the last months of the year both the Prius Plug-In and the Vauxhall Ampera were head to head against the Leaf, earning them respectively  the #2 and #3 spots.

Even if it didn't made such an impact as it did in other markets, maybe the british weather had something to do with it, the Renault Twizy reached a still respectable #4.

Further down the ranking, notice the growth of the Kangoo ZE from 33 units sold in '11 to 234, just enough to keep it in 6th place and the first unit sold on the Renault Zoe, a car that the french brand has high hopes to achieve the top spot in the brands ranking this year, currently it is second at 20% share, behind Nissan with 24%.

Pl	UK	2012	%	2011	%	Pl
1	Nissan Leaf	699	24	635	58	1
2	Toyota Prius Plug-In	470	16	N/A
3	Vauxhall Ampera	455	16	4	0	7
4	Renault Twizy	292	10	N/A
5	Peugeot iOn	251	9	124	11	3
6	Renault Kangoo ZE	234	8	33	3	6
7	BMW Active E	160	5	N/A
8	Citröen C-Zero	110	4	46	4	5
9	Mitsubishi I-Miev	107	4	125	11	2
10	Chevrolet Volt	67	2	N/A
11	Renault Fluence ZE	67	2	N/A
12	Smart Fortwo ED	13	0	120	11	4
13	Renault Zoe	1	0	N/A
	TOTAL	2.926	100	1.087	100

Source: SMMT; BSCB

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London Taxi taken over by the Chinese

Chinese car manufacturer Geely has bought LTI, makers of the legendary black London cabs, for £11.4 million. This includes  plant, equipment and property, intellectual property rights, trade marks and the "goodwill of the business" as well as Manganese Bronze Holdings (MBH) 48% stake in the joint venture manufacturing company in Shanghai set up by Geely and MBH in 2009 and MBH's stock of unsold vehicles.  MBH is the manufacturer of the cabs.

LTI which is based in Coventry went into administration in October. According to news reports, production of the TX4 cabs will still continue in their Coventry plant. They also have revealed plans to come out with new green cabs in the near future.

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