Yes, the Swedish electric vehicle market is an odd one in which approximately 80% of electric vehicle sales are plug-in hybrids, leaving only 20% of the market for fully electric vehicles. Most EV markets are around 50–50 or favor fully electric vehicles (BEVs). Nonetheless, an overall EV market share of 26% is a stunning achievement in early 2020.
Being Sweden, the #1 EV in February was, unsurprisingly, a Volvo. Perhaps more surprisingly, according to the EV Volumes data, the next three vehicles on the list were all Kias! One of the things I’ve noticed from doing EV sales reports in many countries is: Kia and Hyundai are everywhere. The brands seldom hold a #1 ranking, but they seem to be in the top 10 is almost every country.
Adding up the results from the first two months, the Volkswagen Passat GTE takes the #2 spot and the evergreen Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV takes #4. Further down most lists, meanwhile, are several other luxury plug-in hybrids, broken up here and there by 5 fully electric models (other than the leading Kia Niro EV): the Audi e-tron (particularly popular in Nordic countries), Renault Zoe, Nissan Leaf, Kia Soul EV, and Tesla Model 3. As noted above, this is a PHEV-heavy market — it’s quite hard for other fully electric models to break through.
Below are also sales charts with “Others” included if you prefer that view. As is the case in many markets, the electric vehicles that don’t make it into the top 20 combine for more sales than the models in the top 20, showing how spread out and diverse the market is becoming.
Overall, Kia has 24% of the Swedish EV market right now, Volvo has 23%, Volkswagen 11%, BMW 8%, and Mitsubishi 7%.
Have any other thoughts on the results in Sweden? Drop them in the comments below.
Special thanks to José Pontes and EV Volumes for support with data in this article.
Related: The EV Adoption Ramps in 4 Top Electric Vehicle Countries
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