New data published by the German automaker BMW in the annual report on the electric car market shows that, despite the early dominance of BMW with its i3, now it is Tesla Model 3 that is rapidly changing the European market.
A year ago, BMW, which sells an all-electric i3 and plug-in hybrid i8, was the most popular brand in European sales of new electric cars, ahead of Volkswagen with its e-Golf and other European brands such as Renault, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Smart and Porsche.
As you can see from the graphs below, the situation has changed a lot since the advent of the Tesla Model 3 in early 2019.
In November 2018, BMW owned 17% of new registrations for all electric vehicles, including rechargeable electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric cars (PHEVs), but Tesla is currently claiming first place for registering new electric vehicles, 18% new registrations.
2018
Image from The Driven
2019
Image from The Driven
Tighter regulations on fuel emissions in Europe will lead automakers to face heavy fines if their average fleet emissions exceed 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer by 2021.
This forces all car manufacturers to increase the number of electric vehicles in their fleet. Volkswagen is chasing the leader with its first electric hatchback of the ID, ID.3 series.
According to Tesla, the company had approximately 38,000 sales in Europe as of August. Volkswagen said for comparison that all over the world (and most likely most of them are in Europe), it has accepted 35,000 pre-orders for the ID.3 hatchback.
But ID.3 will turn to a market other than Model 3, and is more likely to take the BMW i3 more than the popular Tesla electric sedan.
2018
Image from The Driven
2019
Image from The Driven
BMW plans to introduce the i4 SUV in 2021, but its market position will depend on when Tesla launches the Model Y SUV in Europe. To date, we know that Tesla moved the date three months ahead - the beginning of 2020. And for BMW this is not good news.
Worldwide, the picture, of course, looks a bit different when Chinese brands come into play, but again, Tesla's market share is growing significantly amid BMW's modest growth.
2018
Image from The Driven
2019
Image from The Driven
Featured image: YouTube / CarComparison
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
