Next to China, Europe is the world’s largest market for EVs, and Germany is the EU’s largest car market. You want to look at Germany, and not at Norway, to see where the market is heading.
Powered by tough EU regulations and generous incentives, Germany’s BEV registrations exploded by 414% in April, compared to the same month last year. Plug-in hybrids, up 380%, were similarly strong.
And who’s selling all these BEVs? Definitely not Tesla. In April, a mere 2% of Germany’s BEV registrations went to the Californian carmaker, 98% of the battery-powered cars were delivered by the dinosaurs Tesla wanted to disrupt. Of course, April is an unusual month for Tesla, just like March was. Tesla tends to hurriedly cram as many sales as possible into the last month of the quarter, and in March, Tesla sold 10% of Germany’s BEV. The usual hangover followed a month later.
Cumulative registrations are more significant than Tesla’s yo-yoing monthly numbers. Year-to-date, Tesla’s BEV share continues to sink. January through April, Tesla’s share of the German BEV market shriveled to 7%.
Volkswagen Group on the other hand is on a tear in Deutschland, and its share of the BEV pie is steadily growing. Jan-April, Volkswagen Group sold 36% of Germany’s BEVs, in the month of April, the share already was at 39%. By the end of the year, Volkswagen stands a good chance of selling more BEVs than all other OEMs in Germany.
Tesla fans are proud that in Europe, the Model 3 was the best-selling BEV in the first quarter. In Germany, the Volkswagen E-UP was the most-registered BEV in Germany Jan through April, followed by the company’s ID3, the Hyundai Kona, and Tesla’s Model 3 in place 4. The model ranking blurs the true electric power of an OEM. Tesla sells only 3 models in EU, and its Model S and Y are moved only in homeopathic numbers. Volkswagen, on the other hand, already has 13 BEV models across five of its many brands, in Germany alone. One size doesn’t fit all.
