Renault Zoe tops Model 3 and VW e-Golf in Europe electric vehicle sales

The Renault Zoe has proven the best selling electric vehicle in Europe for the first half of 2020, with more than 10,000 sold in June, tripling sales from the previous month.

The pleasing results for the French car maker means that the popular Zoe – which is being withdrawn from the Australia market because of poor sales and a lack of EV strategy and policy – is ahead of Tesla’s Model 3 in Europe, where EV sales are now rebounding from a Coronavirus-induced sales slump.

Overall auto sales are still recovering from their Covid19 slump, and for the first six months to June 30 are down 24% from the same period a year earlier. EV sales, however, are have doubled, according to José Pontes from the EV Sales website.

His data shows saw all-electric and plug-in hybrid sales doubled from the year earlier period to 93,000 registrations in June, bringing total plug in registrations for the first half of 2020 to 400,000, an 8.2% share of the overall market. (In Australia, the market share of EVs remains at less than 1 per cent).

More than 36,000 Renault Zoe EVs were sold in the first half of 2020, just ahead of the 33,000 Tesla Model 3s sold and double 18,000 Volkswagen e-Golf sales. The VW e-Golf is yet another popular EV model not available in Australia.

All in all, Renault has now sold more than 300,000 Zoe EVs across Europe, a third of them in Frace  where its 52kWh model is in full swing.

VW lovers are likely waiting for the German car maker to solve software issues and get the ID.3 on the road.

Once the ID.3 arrives in September, Pontes spins a positive outcome for the market as Volkswagen fills 30,000 First Edition orders, which”added to some 11,000 Zoe’s and 17,000 Model 3’s, “should provide 58,000 registrations for September in just 3 models!”

This, he says, added to some 70,000 units from the remaining market, will bring registrations to a 11-12% market share which he predicts will be a tipping point for the market.

As for Tesla, Pontes says that by September we should expect to see Model 3 sales in five digit figures again as production and shipping gets back to normal post-Covid, and he still places the Model 3 as the odds on favourite for 2020’s overall best seller.

Even without this expected surge, the Model 3 is outselling its segment competitors tenfold, with just 3,776 high-priced Jaguar I-Paces and 2,937 Mercedes-Benz EQC (due to low production volume suggests Pontes) have been sold to the end of June.

Audi’s e-Tron also begs a mention – with more than 13,500 sales under its belt for the first half of 2020, Pontes says the VW stablemate’s domination in the all-electric E-segment, placed against against 3,111 Taycan sales and 2,506 Model S sales, is “unquestionable”.

For plug-in hybrids, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV remains the best seller for the first half of 2020, with a little more than 14,000 units sold.

However, the big surprise is the Ford Kuga PHEV, which in June sold more than 3,600 units, and more than its entire PHEV sales for 2013 – 2019! This earned it the title of top selling PHEV for June.