France: More Than 315,000 Plug-In Electric Cars Were Sold In 2021

Almost one in five new passenger cars was rechargeable.

The French car market closed the year 2021 with over 1.65 million new registrations (about 0.5% more than in 2020).

However, the plug-in electric segment expanded significantly to over 315,000 units (up 62% year-over-year).

Let's first take a look at the December results. Last month, some 40,202 plug-in vehicles have been registered - new monthly record (up 8% year-over-year), including 38,658 passenger plug-ins and 1,544 commercial vehicles.

Passenger plug-ins also set the fifth consecutive monthly record market share at almost 24.5%.

New plug-in vehicle registrations:

• Passenger BEVs: 23,168 - up 12% at 14.7% market share
• Passenger PHEVs: 15,490 - up 2% at 9.8% market share
• Light commercial BEVs: 1,466 - up 9% at 3.8% market share
• Light commercial PHEVs: 78
• Total plug-ins: 40,202 - up 8%

Plug-in car sales in France – December 2021

In 2021, over 315,000 new plug-ins were registered in France. That's 62% more than a year ago. The passenger plug-in car share increased to 18.3%.

Registrations year-to-date:

• Passenger BEVs: 162,106 - up 46%
• Passenger PHEVs: 141,234 - up 88%
• Light commercial BEVs: 12,085 - up 37%
• Light commercial PHEVs: 553
• Total plug-ins: 315,978 - up 62%

Only 14 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were registered in 2021.

As we can see below, the last two years brought some serious volume to the plug-in segment.

According to our data, more than 780,000 plug-ins were sold in France since 2010, including almost 500,000 all-electric cars.

*some data on the charts are estimated

Models

In December, the Tesla Model 3 was the top all-electric model with 3,959 units, followed by the Renault ZOE (3,332) and Dacia Spring (2,787).

It means that the Tesla Model 3 became the top passenger electric car in France in 2021, with a total of 24,911 units. It's another country conquered by the Model 3.

The Renault ZOE was #2 with 23,573 units - however, there were also 2,127 registrations for commercial purposes. It would mean that more ZOE were put on the road then the Tesla Model 3.

We are counting the Tesla Model 3 as the best-selling passenger car, because the commercial registrations are a different category. Similarly does Jose Pontes (EV Volumes data) in his report for EV Sales Blog and recently Cleantechnica.

The third best selling model was the Peugeot e-208 (17,859 + 1,090 commercial units).

The three top all-electric passenger models are:

• Tesla Model 3: 24,911
• Renault ZOE: 23,573 (plus 2,127 commercial versions)
• Peugeot e-208: 17,859 (plus 1,090 commercial versions)

The three top passenger  plug-in hybrid models are:

• Peugeot 3008 PHEV: 16,962 (plus 40 commercial versions)
• Renault Captur PHEV: 8,180 (plus 309 commercial versions)
• Citroen C5 AC PHEV: 7,097 (plus 11 commercial versions)

Detailed numbers of plug-in car registrations provided by L’Avere-France: