E-Auto Trends – will the breakthrough for electric mobility come in 2019?

28. March 2019

It seems as if in Germany finally the electric car can establish itself in the market. In the first three quarters of 2018, 36 percent more electric cars and plug-in hybrids were sold. The network of charging stations is still patchy, but a consortium of large German corporations in the energy, industry and automobile sector is working on setting up a charging network along the highways. In the area for electric cars, however, the established German manufacturers are still in arrears. Here, Asian manufacturers and startups dominate the market, especially in the small and medium car segment. The Tesla Model 3 continues to be the measure of all things, even though Volkswagen is trying to capitalize on the new trend with the Golf 8 Hybrid and Seat Leon IV plug-in. For small cars, young startups rely on the low price at which they offer their e-cars, so you can drive electric with the e.Go Life or Microlino already from 12,000 Euro. Renault, Skoda and Kia still offer good alternatives and Opel wants to market the new Corsa as a „Volks-Elektroauto“.

Furthermore, China remains the lead market for electromobility. For the first time, more than one million electric vehicles were sold in 2018. This represents an increase of 64 percent compared to the previous year and a total of 1.27 million units, the market share rose from 2.7 to 4.6 percent. The market is dominated by completely electrically powered cars with battery storage with a market share of 77 percent, followed by 23 percent plug-in hybrids. Looking at the manufacturers of the vehicles, Chinese companies have a huge lead of 95 percent and dominate the market.

 

 

This is also reflected in the worldwide sales of e-cars. There is the rather unknown manufacturer BAIC with his model EC180 in third place. The Chinese model of success at a subsidized price of 7,000 Euro has a range of 200 kilometers, two airbags and ABS standard equipped and the battery lasts seven hours. Only the Tesla Model 3 and the established Nissan Leaf sold better in 2018. German manufacturers such as Daimler or Volkswagen are not represented in the first 20 places. The EC180 and 200 are produced by BJEV, the Beijing Electric Vehicle Company. This in turn is an offshoot of the Chinese carmaker BAIC. As the fifth largest manufacturer in China, numerous joint ventures have already been established, selling around 570,000 vehicles from its own brands in 2017. It is so successful that Daimler acquired four percent of the shares in March 2018 in order to work more closely with the Chinese and to promote joint developments.
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