The Volkswagen Group and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance overshadowed Tesla in 2020 when it comes to EV sales in Western Europe. However, the biggest increase in the number of EVs sold is for PSA. The rise of the established order is causing Tesla’s market share to shrink.
In terms of number of EVs sold in Western Europe, the Volkswagen Group is lord and master with 173,943 units in 2020. The increase compared to 2019 is 243.6 percent and the group thus takes a market share of 23.9 percent in the total EV market. , according to figures from research firm Schmidt Automotive Research. In second place is the alliance of Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, which sold 135,537 EVs. This brings the market share to 18.6 percent. Tesla has to settle for third place. The number of cars sold in Europe decreased by 10.7 percent compared to 2019 to 97,791 units. With that, Tesla still manages to take a market share of 13.4 percent in the Western European EV market, but in 2019 it was still more than 30 percent at its peak.
Hyundai / Kia and PSA finish in fourth and fifth place with 94,981 and 69,752 EVs sold respectively. The Koreans thus take a market share of 13 percent, PSA has to settle for 9.6 percent. However, PSA’s EV sales rose the fastest of all manufacturers in the list in 2020, thanks to an increase of no less than 1,285.6 percent compared to 2019.
Lost race?
All in all, it seems that Tesla is losing ground to the ‘established order’ of car manufacturers. It is true that the numbers in the Schmidt Automotive Research study indicate the accumulated EV sales per group and not per brand. Since Tesla is still a separate brand, it is quite clever that it is still there. However, things will not get any easier for Tesla this year. Almost all brands are in the process of rolling out new electric models, which makes mutual competition more fierce. So the question is whether Tesla will still be in this list at the end of next year.