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2018 was a great year for electric vehicle sales in the US with 81% growth over 2017 and the US overall surpassing 2% EV sales market share.
But when you dive into the data, it is clear that 2019 will come back down to earth (likely around 20% YOY growth - I'm finalizing my forecast in the next few days). Below is a link to my latest article on CleanTechnica where I dive into 9 charts and offer up some insights and analysis:
US EV Sales Surpass 2% For 2018 — 9 EV Sales Charts
Even Elon Musk apparently liked my article as he "liked" the @CleanTechnica tweet.
You can also find 15 charts analyzing 2018 US EV sales trends inserted into a handy PDF. Feel free to share the link to these slides and statistics among your team - you can also download the PDF from SlideShare.
My 24 EV Predictions For 2018 — How Did I Do?
My article, My 24 EV Predictions For 2018 — How Did I Do?, also went live on CleanTechnica Saturday. In it I assess how my predictions turned out from an article posted December 31, 2017. You'll have to read the article to find out how I did, but I'll just say I nailed some and was way off on several.
Recent EVAdoption Articles You May Have Missed
How Google, Apple and Amazon May Participate in the EV Charging Market Opportunity
15 Shifts: How The Transition to Electric Vehicles Will Transform Industries, Jobs and the Environment
Industry News of Interest
It was quite a week for EV-related news and this week portends to be huge as well with the coming Ford-VW alliance announcement (among others) at the Detroit Auto Show.
Following are a few articles on GM's announcement that Cadillac will become the automaker's electric-focused brand over the next several years.
This is a smart move by GM, which fumbled its BEV effort with the Bolt. While the Bolt was solid effort, it never had a chance under the Chevrolet brand and should have been marketed as a Buick (or possibly under a relaunched Saturn brand), had a better interior and been designed as a more traditional crossover. While I don't see an electric Cadillac SUV/CUV competing much with Tesla, it should do well against brands such as Lincoln and Lexus.
- Ford to 'redesign' European business - Autocar, January 9 - "Every Ford model will include an electrified model, either mild, full or plug-in hybrid, or battery electric." Hmm, 4 powertrains ... I want to know more about this strategy, but perhaps they will be outsourcing much of the BEV platform development to VW. Stay tuned.
- WiTricity Wireless Charging Featured in Honda’s Vehicle-to-Grid Energy Management System - WiTricity press release, December 12, 2018 - This is actually a month old, but came to my attention last week. I interviewed WiTricity's CEO about a year ago, so look forward to diving into this in a few weeks and learning more about their entrance into the V2G area.
- One-step Plug&Charge coming to (Electrify) America - January 9, Green Car Reports - "In partnership with European charging systems integrator Hubject, Electrify America is enabling Plug&Charge on all its public charging stations in the U.S. It makes public chargers—both standard Level 2 chargers and Level 3 DC fast chargers—work like the home chargers that most electric-car drivers have in their garages: Just plug in the power cord and it starts charging."
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Toyota says it doesn’t worry about Tesla’s lead, shuns all-electric and goes ‘electrified’ by 2025 - Electrek, January 7 - Quoting from the article: “I’d argue to the contrary. When you are looking at full electric, whether it’s Tesla or others on the market, they represented last year less than one percent of the industry and as you know, the industry had a fabulous year last year. Our strategy is to keep utilizing our hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and eventually bring in battery-electric vehicles as the market grows.” - Bob Carter, executive vice president of sales for Toyota Motor North America. Toyota continues to resist the transition to BEVs, even while hybrid sales continue to decline, especially in key US markets like California, where buyers have shifted aggressively toward BEVs and PHEVs.
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Ford is shutting down its Chariot shuttle service - TechCrunch, January 12 - While this is not directly about electric vehicles, my heart sank when I heard that Ford was shutting down its microtransit service, Chariot. I still believe microtransit will play a key role in the future of helping to solve the first and last mile challenges, but this is certainly a setback.
As always, would love to hear from you - send me an email with your comments and suggestions.
Plugs not pumps!
Loren McDonald
EVAdoption
Analyst/Writer/Speaker
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