EV sales growth too slow
Fewer buyers than expected, but "clearly" the futureThe global electric-car market has yet to find its feet, the world’s biggest electric-vehicle maker, Renault-Nissan, confirmed today.
Pouring cold water on the stratospheric predictions for Tesla’s Model 3 and the horde of European premium brands about to enter the battery-electric vehicle (BEV) market, Renault says it is disappointed by its sales.
Speaking at the 2017 Automotive News Europe Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday, Gilles Normand, Renault's senior vice-president for electric vehicles admitted the company’s €4 billion investment in BEVs which started six years ago hasn’t paid off – yet.
The two-continent alliance is the world’s clear market leader in BEVs, with the Nissan Leaf and the Renault Zoe regularly trading the number-one spot.
"We don’t want them be seen as a car which I need to have because I am ecosystem friendly," Normand told the Congress. "They are a lot of fun, they are very quiet and torque is delivered in an efficient way.
"Ninety-nine per cent of customers moving from internal combustion say they will never go back to an ICE product," he said. "That is what is driving our business today and they are clearly the future of the automotive industry."
CEO Carlos Ghosn set Renault-Nissan on the road to BEVs in 2011 by predicting it would have production capacity for half a million electric cars a year by 2013. However, global sales of BEVs and plug-in hybrids from all carmakers totaled just 465,000 last year.
Normand pointed out that more and more governments are signing on to fuel-economy standards, which now cover 83 per cent of the world’s markets, and it would particularly effect China, the world’s biggest car market.
The Chinese Government aims to have five million BEVs and plug-in hybrids on its rods by 2025, while India is hoping to be a completely zero-emission market by 2030.
"Electric vehicles are a good short term answer for particulate emissions, and a long term solution for climate and CO2 emissions, together with cleaner energy generation," Normand said.
The Renault exec revealed a Morgan Stanley prediction that BEVs would rise to 16 per cent of the global car market by 2030 before overtaking internal-combustion car sales by 2040.
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