USA March 2015

Surprise of the Month

"What tha...FIAT?!?" Edition

More than 10.000 plug-ins were sold in the US last month, the first time that we see five-digit numbers in the first quarter, although the growth rate is a meager 12% improvement over the same month last year, confirming that the US EV market is:

a) Plateauing, derived from falling gas prices;

b) Waiting for new models, coming in the second half of the year (Volt II, Model X, next Prius Plug-in, etc).

But while these highly anticipated models are a few months away, there is plenty of animation with the current players, starting with Fiat, delivering what it could sound like an April fool's prank: 1.310 units were delivered last month, far higher from the hundred-something we got used to, is FCA finally realizing the tremendous potential of the electric version of its cute 500? I will only believe it when they start selling it outside the current markets (California and Oregon).

If it weren't the outlandish result of the 500e, the head title would be dedicated to the Model S, after losing the last two monthly Best Seller trophies to the Leaf by less than 100 units, in March Tesla hit the accelerator pedal and delivered some 2.400 units, stealing at the same time the YTD leadership from the japanese car, which has been consistently selling less than last year.

Behind the podium seats, the referred 500e surged to #7, even surpassing the Prius Plug-in, that despite a small spike in sales (473 sales, best result of the year), continues to drift slowly down the ranking.

In the Caddie ELR vs BMW i8 private duel, the german car continues to impress, selling 143 units in March and surpassing the GM offer in the YTD chart, with the new Cadillac boss recently announcing the end of the ELR, it looks that BMW will have the sports-car segment all for itself, at least until a certain Audi R8 e-Tron shows up...

Final references on the manufacturers ranking, there's a new Number One, Tesla is ahead (20% Share), followed closely by Nissan (18%) and Ford (17%), while the PHEV share of the market as its smallest expression ever, with only 35%. The difference that a retiring Volt does, eh?

Pl	USA	March	YTD	%
1	Tesla Model S e)	2.400	4.511	20
2	Nissan Leaf	1.817	4.085	18
3	BMW i3	922	2.681	12
4	Chevrolet Volt	639	1.874	8
5	Ford Fusion Energi	837	1.866	8
6	Ford C-Max Energi	715	1.608	7
7	Fiat 500e e)	1.310	1.546	7
8	Toyota Prius Plug-In	473	1.271	6
9	Volkswagen e-Golf	195	506	2
10	Mercedes B-Class ED	145	494	2
11	Ford Focus Electric	140	370	2
12 13 14 15	Chevrolet Spark EV BMW i8 Smart Fortwo ED Cadillac ELR	151 143 103 92	356 341 326 311	2 1 1 1
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23	Porsche Cayenne Plug-In Kia Soul EV P. Panamera Plug-In Porsche 918 Honda Accord Plug-In Mitsubishi I-Miev Toyota RAV4 EV Honda Fit EV	72 63 44 10 5 10 4 1	261 180 145 58 45 15 13 1	1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
	TOTAL	10.291	22.864	100

Source: insideevs.com