Sure hope Fiat brings the new 500e to the US. I have the original 500e, and love it, but the longer range would cure its primary inadequacy.

Can not wait for the day when we have $ 20.000 - $ 25.000 BEV in North America.
Because with lower prices, more people will be able to afford them.

FWIW the 150-mile 2022 Nissan Leaf is currently offered across the country at $28-29k before Federal and state incentives.
If your household has annual tax liability (before any deductions) of >$7.5k, this means ~$21k, and even less in many states.
This has been roughly the price of a base Leaf model since 2013-4. The majority of US households with children have 2+ cars, and at least half of those have access to overnight charging, so range/charge should not have been a factor for replacing one of the two.
Also, the Leaf has (almost?) always been offered at the cheapest prices in the US compared with other countries and with Americans' average earning power.

So paradoxically, the US was actually the perfect landing market for affordable, decent-sized short/medium range BEVs.

Had the Leaf been more in demand in the US over these years, it would have created a market signal, and the entire history of legacy automakers and EVs in the US market may have been different. Didn't happen.

Some of this is the fault of automakers themselves, of course, including Nissan which started de-prioritizing the US market a few years ago. But a lot is the result of mass disinformation and consumer apathy. People couldn't care less about reaching out of their information bubble/comfort-zone, even if it would have meant saving $$ for them and reducing planet-burning emissions.

Good points Assaf, thanks. It is possible that there's an apathy or culture-of-complacency problem in the US.

It would happen over time. But as of now even the demand on higher end of the market has not been fulfilled. Also let's not forget the average new car price is around $40K.

Cheap cars will be the very last ones to get their hands on batteries. Every manufacturer is battery constrained, the batteries they do have are going into higher margin more expensive vehicles. It'll be many years before the battery industry can supply the full replacement of new ICE.

Not quite. The Wuling Mini is a $5000 vehicle which is the world's second best selling BEV.
Many people are happy to own a simple-affordable urban BEV with modest range and small battery.
Sodium Ion will be the big game changer on battery production capacity by the second half of this decade.

February should tell us how things are going after the emissions requirement. It probably was that a lot of sales were pulled from January into December.

Number 1 and Number 2 and 5 in the top 20.
Stellantis EVs are doing surprisingly well in Germany.

Interesting, Stellantis had the two top selling electric vehicles in January, Fiat and Opel.

We need to dramatically tighten emissions requirements so that electric vehicles can pass diesels.

How would that make battery manufacturers build factories faster?

Because it would suck even more produced units away from China and North America into Germany.

It would probably just raise the price used vehicles even more as fewer new vehicles are sold.

I forgot that environmental regulations raise the price of products and hurt poor people.

EVs are already growing something like 50% per year historically and faster recently. I don’t think that is any policy short of outright bans that can make things go faster.

Right. Because of the regulations.

I live in Florida, USA. There are no incentives or regulations limiting gas vehicle sales, yet I am seeing a rapid increase in electric cars on the road here.

Federal emissions credits and the federal tax credit.

There are publicly funded charging stations all over that state.

Up to a couple percent now?

There are no Federal emissions credits and the Federal Tax credit expired for Tesla and Chevy years ago and no publicly funded chargers in Florida.

Yet I am seeing these cars in increasing numbers.

1. Incorrect

There is a federal program similar to the CARB credits, but it is much smaller.

1a. Regardless, you said EVs are growing, not Tesla and Bolt are growing.

2. There are tons of subsidized chargers in Florida.

EA money is court -ordered funding that could have been used for education or welfare, or given back to the public - just like my income taxes.

Also, Google:
Florida Taps VW Settlement Funds to Expand EV Infrastructure.

Should be #1 result. These are separate from the EA locations.

Name the federal program.

I'll concede that one if that's the only point you still dispute.

No, it is just the most ridiculous.

VW funded chargers are not publicly funded chargers.

EVs are growing in Florida, Teslas and the Bolt were just two examples that don’t have tax credits.

Literally every claim you made was wrong.

The settlement was between the US EPA, the individual states and VW. The various governments could have sent the money to schools, or to highway construction, or to feed the homeless.

The money was taken from VW using force of law, and by government, just like my income taxes, and used to do the government's bidding.

Also, ICE vehicles pay additional taxes nationally and in Florida (state and federal fuels taxes) that EVs don't pay.

I think they also enjoy increased access to HOV lanes?

It's called the EPA GHG Program.

EPA’s GHG program is an averaging, banking, and trading (ABT) program. An ABT program means that the standards may be met on a fleet average basis, manufacturers may earn and bank credits to use later, and manufacturers may trade credits with other manufacturers. This provides manufacturers flexibility in meeting the standards while accounting for vehicle design cycles, introduction rates of new technologies and emission improvements, and evolving consumer preferences.

Within a model year, manufacturers with average fleet emissions lower than the standards generate credits, and manufacturers with average fleet emissions higher than the standards generate deficits. Any manufacturer with a deficit at the end of the model year has up to three years to offset the deficit with credits earned in future model years, or purchased from another manufacturer.

Tesla makes reference to it on page 10 of their most recent annual report.

The text above came straight out of...

The 2021 EPA Automotive Trends Report Executive Summary.

Available at EPA . gov

I googled this and got nothing until I copied and pasted the exact wording.

I honestly had never heard about this program.

My understanding is that it's not nearly as large as the CARB program. Probably mouse nuts to Tesla.

Good piece thanks. Now I understand the mechanics behind what I consider Germany's January countertrend ICE 'spike'. Next up: unravelling China's New Year shutdown and the effects of hosting the Winter Olympics on the light vehicle market.

Assuming the same growth rate for 2022 as 2021, and no overall market growth, we get about 1 million EVs sold this year or 40% (close enough!) for the entire year not just a month or a quarter.

If we further assume (this assumption is super shaky) that the legacy automotive industry finally sees the writing on the wall then we may expect 1.5 million EVs sold for a 60% market share.

Like the man's sandwich board says "The end is nigh!"

Last years' EV growth in Germany was mainly driven by legacy auto.

Thanks for your prediction of 1M and 40% full year share. That sounds about right, perhaps slightly optimistic, but certainly possible. I certainly think that 35% or a bit higher is a safe bet.

As for the high end limit - I suppose it will depend a lot on how many ICE cars get sold.
Lol - sandwich boards need to make a come back!

Germany and the Netherlands EVs sales charts start to look more and more like mature markets, that is like with most consumer goods, the most affordable products on top of the charts.

Yes, good point, this will all become a normal mature consumer market in the not-too-distant future.

Max, you don't know what will happen, you don't have a crystal ball, so these "this or that WILL happen" prophecies aren't doing any good. "We'll probably see them back up", "it should", or whatever.

You are stating the obvious - no one can predict the future.

Obviously its reasonable to think that the EV transition is moving fast in Germany and will continue to do so, despite any monthly ups-and-downs.

However, many of our CT community are all interested in finer details of the speed of the transition, so - based on latest data - I offer my thoughts about what I expect to see in the year ahead, which I clearly state is *my* thinking ("I think it’s likely that...") and I ask readers to offer thoughts also.

None of us are pretending we can accurately predict the precise future.

Not quite sure what anyone has learned from your comment beyond your grumpiness.

Obviously its reasonable to think that the EV transition is moving fast in Germany and will continue to do so, despite any monthly ups-and-downs.

We'll likely going to see a slowdown next year when the government starts to phase out EV subsidies.

(Also expect a massive December sales month in Germany this year because this will be the last month with the full 9500 Euro subsidy.)

The predictions are good, everyone is trying to figure out what the market will look like in the future and Max is better positioned than your average reader to make that prediction.

They also provide a kind of accountability as well. We can look back at how Max's past predictions panned out, which gives us a measure of confidence in how his future predictions will do.

That could make for an interesting article Max Holland , looking back at how your past predictions have held up.

Thanks Josh. Good idea to see how my previous predictions stacked up - I had a look back at my clearly stated estimates in the April Germany Report, and again in the July report (other months' estimates were more vague or not present):

April Report - "in my view it seems inevitable that Germany will get very close to 30% for full year 2021, with the month of December likely to climb to around 40%."

July - "around 35% in December with a full year result in the high 20-something percent range"

What actually happened => December was 36% and full year was 26%

So I'd say April was too optimistic (though not bad from the POV of a 22% result that month), and July was pretty close to what happened. In later months (October, November - already in the low 30% range) I again predicted December could peak close to 40%, which proved a bit too optimistic.

My approach is simply to look at the seasonal evolution of the growth trend from the previous years and adjust to where the latest data places us. I'm okay with being fairly close but ultimately a bit more optimistic that what eventually happened ;-)

Great work Max, thank you :)!

Question - what is up with the ID3 & 4? are they production constrained? Their sales figures are nowhere near what I would have expected across all regions and countries.

Did you actually read the article much? VW's weak January showing is discussed.

Over the longer term ID.3 and 4 are doing okay in Europe, #3 and #4 of all BEVs, see Jose's articles.