France: Plug-Ins Take 19% Of The Market In December And 11% In 2020

In total, close to 195,000 new plug-in electric cars were sold, which is 180% more than in 2019.

By: Mark Kane

Jan 20, 2021 at 6:08am ET

Add InsideEVs as a preferred source in Google

Comment

Just like in Germany, also in France, December 2020 was the culmination of the EV rush in 2020. Manufacturers were in a hurry to sell as many plug-ins as possible (to comply with CO2 requirements in the European Union), customers were in a hurry to take advantage of incentives, and there were simply many new, attractive models.

Last month, a total of 37,250 new plug-in cars were registered, which is a new all-time record and the result is 372% higher than in 2019. 35,902 of those cars were passenger cars and they account for a record 19.3% of the market!

All-electric cars still stand for the majority of plug-in car sales, but plug-in hybrids are growing much quicker (522% in December):

Passenger BEVs: 20,734 (record) - up 332% at 11.1% market share (record)
Passenger PHEVs: 15,168 (record) - up 522% at 8.1% market share (record)
Light commercial BEVs: 1,347 - up 110%
Total plug-ins: 37,250 (record) - up 372%

Those are really extraordinary results, especially in contrast to the challenging economy, and declining passenger car market (down 12% year-over-year to 186,323).

Plug-in car sales in France – December 2020

Plug-in electric car registrations in France – 2020

In 2020, the French passenger car market went down by 25% to over 1,650,000, while passenger plug-ins tripled to 185,909 taking 11.2% of the market. That's more than one in ten new cars. Additionally, some 8,792 new all-electric light delivery vehicles were registered.

The final number of new plug-ins stands at 194,730 (up 180% year-over-year).

Sales year-to-date:

Passenger BEVs: 110,916 (record) - up 159% at 6.7% market share (record)
Passenger PHEVs: 74,993 (record) - up 304% at 4.5% market share (record)
Light commercial BEVs: 8,792 - up 10%
Total plug-ins: 194,730 (record) - up 180%

Cumulatively, there are some 470,295 plug-in electric cars registered in France, and most of them were bought in the last two years.

*some data on the charts are estimated

Models (all-electric)

In December, the Renault ZOE with 5,978 new registrations almost hit a new record (the previous was 6,012 in June). No other model was even close.

A big surprise is 2,550 registrations for the Volkswagen ID.3, which happened to be the second most popular model! There are more such surprises, in third was the Dacia Spring Electric (1,721), fourth was the Fiat 500 electric (1,454) and fifth was the Renault Twingo Z.E. (1,353). All of those models are just entering the market.

The Peugeot e-208 this time disappointed with a relatively low result of 1,165 (compared to its initial months). The Tesla Model 3 was seventh with 878 units.

Renault ZOE

2020 Peugeot e-208 GT

The three top-selling all-electric cars for the year 2020 were: unbeatable Renault ZOE (37,409), Peugeot e-208 (16,577) and the best of the rest - Tesla Model 3 (6,477)!