Norway September 2015

Early Signs Edition

Some 2.600 units were sold last month, up 64% YoY and the EV Share stable at 22%, a significant departure from the 14% recorded last year.

Here we might be witnessing the first signs of the VW emissions scandal (1), with VAG models underperforming and their direct competitors having unexpected sales growth:

- Volkswagen pure electric models e-Up! and e-Golf had their second worst sales month of the year, selling only 700 units in total;

- The VW Golf GTE sold only 156 units, its worst showing since April, while its Audi cousin, the A3 e-Tron, registered only 94 units, its worst performance since January;

- On the other hand, the Nissan Leaf, previously hit by the e-Golf presence, had its best result since March, selling 492 units, recording its first YoY positive balance in six months(!). I think it's a no brainer to say that both the e-Golf and Leaf are after the same customers and they are now returning to Nissan's side...

- Other models to benefit from this are possibly the BMW i3, with sales up 80%, the Renault Zoe, which has seen its sales jump 175% and even the old school Mitsu I-Miev saw its sales grow 150% YoY, registering its best sales month since January...

Despite this, the monthly Top 5 stayed the same as August, so what has been described above are still early signs that will have to be confirmed in the future.

Pl	Model	Sales
1	Volkswagen e-Golf e)	620
2	Nissan Leaf	492
3	BMW i3	266
4	Volkswagen Golf GTE	168
5	Tesla Model S	127

Looking at the YTD ranking, the BMW i3 recovered one position, replacing the Audi A3 e-Tron in #6, making it the best position for the german hatch since March, but the good news for BMW didn't ended here, as the X5 Plug-in landed with a promising result, registering 16 units in its first sales month, already menacing the Cayenne Plug-In in the PHEV Luxury SUV niche. 

Pl	Norway	Sept.	YTD'15	%	'14Pl
1	Volkswagen e-Golf e)	620	6.859	27	5
2	Tesla Model S	127	3.243	13	2
3	Nissan Leaf	492	2.680	11	1
4	Mitsu Outlander PHEV	111	1.563	6	6
5	Volkswagen Golf GTE	168	1.493	6	N/A
6	BMW i3	266	1.369	5	4
7	Audi A3 e-Tron	94	1.359	5	21
8 9	Renault Zoe Volkswagen e-Up! e)	112 80	1.207 1.147	5 5	8 3
10 11	Mercedes B-Class ED Kia Soul EV	118 109	1.087 630	4 3	N/A 7
12 13	Peugeot iOn Mitsubishi I-Miev	52 74	475 444	2 2	11 9
14	Volvo V60 Plug-In		438	2	14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28	Nissan e-NV200 / Evalia Citröen C-Zero Peugeot Partner EV e) Renault Kangoo ZE e) Smart Fortwo ED Citröen Berlingo EV e) BMW i8 Porsche Cayenne Plug-In Ford Focus Electric Toyota Prius Plug-In BMW X5 40e PHEV Mercedes C350e PHEV e) Mercedes S500 Plug-In e) Opel Ampera	10 39 5 5 15 5 4 4 13 2 16 10 4	320 290 102 81 67 61 35 34 24 18 16 15 8 2	1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	15 8 12 19 22 16 20 N/A 13 17 N/A N/A N/A 21
	TOTAL	2.555	25.067	100

Source: ofvas; elbil.no

(1) - By the way, there's an interesting article on Pistonudos that sheds some light on the matter and why VW also cheated in Europe, it's in Spanish, but for non speakers of the Cervantes language, there's always Google Translator...