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Cars Electric Car Leaders US

Published on November 7th, 2014 | by Zachary Shahan

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BMW Trails Only Tesla In % of Car Sales That Are Electric (Charts)

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November 7th, 2014 by Zachary Shahan 

EV Obsession.

With Nissan being the world leader in electric car sales, and its CEO amd Chairman (Carlos Ghosn) being bullish on electric car sales for years, we often put it and Tesla at the top when it comes to electric car leadership. However, new data show that BMW is perhaps now #2 behind Tesla.

Looking at the past three months (August, September, and October), when BMW was producing more of the BMW i3 thanks to good consumer demand in the US, the BMW i3 accounted for almost 5% (4.93%) of BMW’s US car sales (as well as 3.85% of all BMW US sales).

BMW i3 sales

Electric cars on the whole account for less than 1% of US car sales. Nissan has this year seen 2.1% of its car sales coming from the Nissan LEAF. Ford has seen 0.9% of its car sales coming from plug-in models (the Ford Fusion Energi, Ford C-Max Energi, and Ford Focus Electric). And GM has seen 0.7% of its sales come from plug-in cars. Of course, 100% of Tesla sales come from 100% electric cars.


 

Clearly, aside from Tesla, BMW is a step above the others. Even if you include the first three months of BMW i3 sales in the US, when things were just getting rolling, and as you can see in the chart above, sales were much lower than in the last three months, the i3 accounted for 2.3% of BMW car sales, as Green Car Reports.

Interestingly, Tesla’s Chief Designer, Jerome Guillen, recently said in an interview that, aside from Tesla, he is probably most impressed in BMW’s electric vehicle program.

Here’s a look at more BMW numbers, from BMW via Green Car Congress: “In October, the i3 outsold the 1/2 Series (672 units); the Z4 (198 units); and the 6 Series (740 units). The 3/4 Series is still dominant in US sales, with 13,621 units in October, followed by the 5 Series, with 4,914 units.”

Worldwide, BMW sold over 10,000 BMW i3 EVs in the first three quarters of 2014, as well as 341 BMW i8 PHEVs from June through September. Worldwide, the BMW i3 and BMW i8 only represent 0.8% of its car sales.

Source: EV Obsession. Reprinted with permission.

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About the Author

spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.


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  • mike

    it seems no accident that the EVs that are selling well are the ones the are purpose designed – not just a EV version of an existing ICE car.

  • Will E

    important to me, is the production chain.
    I do not want an EV made with nuke power.
    so no France Japan cars. nor Brauncoal cars, Germany cars.
    or coal cars. Usa cars.

    leaves the new Tesla produced with Giga Factory Solar and Wind Power.

    • Jenny Sommer

      Actually BMW has built its own windplants (Nordex) for car production in Leipzig.
      BMW has reduced its emissions from 2006-2012 by 30%.
      VW and BMW have set the goal to further reduce emissions (and use of solvents) and get the “greenest” carmakers (at least in production).

    • GCO

      Given that the vast majority of the energy used by a car is during its use, not its production, I find your concern, while valid, a bit misplaced — especially if the alternative would be for you to burn gas while waiting (many years) for a car green enough for your standards.

      See e.g the very thorough life-cycle assessments for the Leaf and Fluence EV:
      http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/ENVIRONMENT/CAR/LCA/
      http://group.renault.com/en/commitments/environment/environmental-policy/

      Also, Tesla ‘giga-factory’ will produce batteries, not cars, and it’s not clear what proportion of its power will come from its own renewables, especially initially.

  • JamesWimberley

    So what? BMW is a luxury car maker, Nissan and GM and Ford are mass-market ones. It’s likely that luxury car buyers are more sensitive to fashion and image and less to price, so you would expect a faster shift to electric in that segment. BMW’s success isn’t a threat to Nissan as much as to luxury rivals who have not yet marketed ev models: Mercedes, Saab, Jaguar, etc. Nissan needs to move with its Infiniti brand, as GM has with Cadillac.

    • Jouni Valkonen

      All electric cars are luxury cars because at this point of development it does not make sense to offer non-luxury electric cars. today our goal should be that all the most expensive five percent of the cars would be all electric, because electric cars do make sense today in price category above 45 000 dollars.

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