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Tesla finished Q1 2022 ahead of VW Group's combined West European new BEV volumes according to the next edition of the European Electric Car Study published on Monday.
The W-European new BEV market saw 316,900 new models enter the roads of the 18 markets monitored by the report during Q1 2022, or 12.8% mix of a total 2.48mn market.
With PHEVs added to the equation the total plug-in market accounted for 22% of all new car registrations between January and March 2022.
Despite Western Europe's pure electric passenger car market falling on unpredicted times with hurricane headwinds coming in the form of the continued semi-conductor shortage, the Ukrainian wire harness impact, raw material price concerns, and covid shutdowns in China, BEV volumes across the monitored 18 market region achieved the third-best quarter on record. The other two quarters with higher volumes came during the final quarter of the past two years, where OEMs traditionally flood the market with electric volumes to achieve CO2 targets before the finishing tape falls.
Thanks to EU/UK and Swiss CO2 fleet average compliance targets, OEMs are still giving their BEV models preferential treatment when it comes to the limited amount of semi-conductors to go around.
It now appears this situation is unlikely to change for the remainder of 2022 and will likely drag into 2023 according to consensus across the industry.
Twenty-two per cent of all the new passenger cars that entered West European roads during the first quarter of 2022 were plug-in, with BEV accounting for 12.8 per cent and PHEVs 9.2 per cent.
The BEV 12-month rolling total continued to rise to above 1.3 million units while PHEVs have begun heading in the other direction, having recently broken through the 12-month annualised 1 million barrier.
Next week, a full analysis with data sets and trends will be published in the full study.
Quarterly subscriptions (4 editions per year) are also now available here as well as single editions and annual subscriptions.
May also interest you: Full 2021 year Executive Summary: BEVs surpassed diesels for the first time click here for the story
*Western Europe 18 Markets: EU Member States prior to the 2004 enlargement plus EFTA markets Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, plus UK
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