Still early days for EV sales

Sales concentrated to a few models

Inside EVs is a great page for keeping on-top of the world of EVs and batteries. They do some nice data on EV sales in the US, as can be seen below.

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Very interesting to me is how the Chevrolet Volt (which is a Plug-in hybrid) has started to gain some serious momentum, surpassing the Model S in sales. This car makes a lot of sense to commuters and I think this is the big selling point of EVs at the moment. We are still far away from EVs being the ultimate car for all situations. But commuting cost money and time, and with EVs you can reduce the monetary part significantly and in the US often also time, since you are allowed to drive in the High-Occupancy Lane normally reserved for people that share their car with others for the commute.

Still below 1% penetration

The 13423 sold cars in July sums up to about 0.9% of the total vehicle sales in the US. So penetration is still at very early stages. As can be seen sales is driven by very few models at the moment. With the Tesla Model 3, we can probably expect at least 10 000 units per month just from that car (based on pre-orders). I think we are not that far from moving from the the Innovators stage to actually talking Early Adopters. As you know technology often follows an S-curve, when a tipping point is reached, it goes very quickly (think fridge, flat-TV or Smartphone). So still very hard to see when we will reach the tipping point, but many have guessed around 2020. I think it is somewhat too optimistic and that we will linger in the 5-10% penetration range until the big players like GM, BMW, Audi really jumps on the train and that is when we will see enough charging stations around the world as well.

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Just looking at me personally, I have not had the urge to move over to EV, but with the Model 3, Chev Bolt, or hybrids with pure EV range that actually is enough for most shorter rides we city people do, it starts to make sense. To me personally the one problem holding me back is the question about charging.

Conclusion

Important to keep an eye on penetration rates, all of a sudden sales will start to move quickly. Norway is the only example where they already reached the tipping point and as they did it moved quickly. Also good to keep track of which battery producer is supplying which car. For example LG Chem is supplying Chevy and Samsung SDI is supplying BMW.

 

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