West EU PEV market hits 0.5 million units after 5-months

For the 11th consecutive month, monthly registrations of new plug-in passenger cars across W-Europe continued to account for >20% of the total market up to May 2022 according to the monthly European Electric Car Study's data.

Published

May 2022

Industry

Electric Vehicles

By the end of 2022, the study expects every fourth new car entering the 18 market region to be either a BEV or PHEV over a 12-month annual basis with significant order backlogs to be cleared. Volkswagen AG alone says they have an order backlog of 300,000 BEV-only vehicles alone for the West European region with a significant push expected during the second half once the Hanover (ID.Buzz) and Emden (ID.4) plants begin easing those backorders. BMW Group are also increasing the production rate of their i4 model in Munich while Tesla’s German site, despite having a slow ramp-up, is expected to slowly increase production volumes for the region as OEMs once again race to meet EU CO2 fleet average emissions targets with effectively no super-credit tools left to reach their weight-based fleet targets.

A line graph titled "Every fifth new passenger car continues to be a plug-in – heading to 1-in-4 in 2022." The graph shows an upward trend in BEV and PHEV sales from 2015 to 2021. An SUV image is on the right, with a text box detailing BEV 13.4% and PHEV 8.7% sales. — Source: Schmidt Automotive Research

A pull-forward in sales is potentially inflating the German plug-in market this year – accounting for 28% of the total West European plug-in market during the opening 5-months of the year – as purchase subsidies are set to be cut in 2023. The total amount of new BEVs across Western Europe during the opening 5 months reach 0.5mn units (same period 2021: 356 thousand) while total plug-in volumes reached 878,000 units during the same period this year.