The plug-in car market is dominated by the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV and Nissan’s Leaf as the two models have more than 27,000 registrations according to the latest figures from the Department for Transport.
The break-down of vehicle sales by make and model for 2015 has been released today by the DVLA, with the popular Mitsubishi and Nissan models accounting tor 16,100 and 11,219 of the total 50,685 plug-in vehicle sales respectively. We have more up-to-date information available for total Plug-in Car Grant (PiCG) eligible registrations – currently more than 58,000 – but it takes longer for the model-by-model numbers to come through.
The first four places in terms of best-selling PiCG eligible vehicles remains unchanged, with BMW’s i3 and Renault’s Zoe in third and fourth places respectively. However the Tesla Model S has leap-frogged Toyota’s Prius Plug-in into fifth place.
A sign of how the plug-in car market has developed in the last year or so is how many PHEV models there are now and the proportion of sales they make up. The PHEV mix is higher than ever at 56 per cent of plug-in sales on 28,331 units – compared to 22,337 EVs and 17 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Strong performers include the Volvo XC90 T8 TwinEngine which sold 38 units, despite costing around £60,000 and only being on sale for part of the period from September to December. Mercedes’ C350e sold 500 models and has now firmly established itself in the top 20 list at 15, outselling rivals such as the Audi A3 e-tron – 185 units in 11th – and the VW Golf GTE – 334 units in 9th – during the same three months.
