Last month in Europe the Volkswagen ID. series dominated BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) sales, with the ID.4 and ID.3 in the two top positions.
JATO Dynamics sums up what happened last month in Europe.
- Last month, European new car registrations were up by 261% from April 2020, but still far from pre-pandemic levels – down by 23% from April 2019
- Low emissions vehicles accounted for 15% of the total market share
- The Volkswagen ID.4 became the first SUV to secure top spot in the BEV rankings
- Once again, Peugeot led in the overall model rankings
Best-selling cars in Europe in April 2021 by JATO
As we can observe from the table above, the best-selling BEV needs to at least double its sales to have a chance of reaching the overall top 10.
While in China the affordability and availability issues of electric cars are now being solved by adopting cobalt-free batteries, electric cars made in Europe still rely exclusively on more expensive NCM batteries.
I’m very curious to see which electric car made in Europe will get a LFP (LiFePO4) battery option first. Volkswagen already made a huge investment in Guoxuan – the battery cell maker specialized in the LFP chemistry – and may soon reap the benefits from it.
However, an entry-level Volkswagen ID.3 with a 50 kWh LFP battery option sold for 20.000-25.000 euros before government subsidies would cannibalize some VW Golf sales.
I’m pretty sure that the only reason why electric cars don’t compete with their gas-counterparts in price yet is because legacy automakers don’t want them to. The technology to do it is already here.
Remember when years ago automakers told us that when EV batteries reached 100 euros per kWh, EVs would cost the same as their ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) alternatives without the need of government subsidies? Well, with LFP batteries the kWh cost is already way bellow that figure (around 60 euros), but automakers keep moving the goalpost…
Fortunately, we might have to only wait until next year for a great electric hatchback that is a real ICE killer. I have extremely high expectations for the BYD EA1, that is reported to get a price “well under” 35.000 AUD in Australia early next year, which means below 22.212 euros.
BYD EA1
What do you think? What will be the first BEV to continuously secure a place in the top 10 of best selling cars in Europe? Upcoming compact hatchback from Tesla or the BYD EA1?
