Thursday, February 26, 2015

Hyundai releases new European Tucson/ix35 FCV price

Earlier this month Hyundai announced to slash the Korean price of their Tucson Fuel Cell by 43% to the equivalent of US$ 77,000. Yesterday Hyundai announced the new price in Europe: € 55,000 (US$ 62,700). In the Netherlands that results in a consumer price of € 66,550 incl. VAT. In Europe the Tucson is called ix35. In comparison the Hyundai Fuel Cell is available in the USA for lease only at a monthly price of $ 499.

The new price is close to being a competitive offer to traditional cars with combustion engines. If Hyundai doesn't lose too much on it, it would mark a significant step towards making fuel cell vehicles competitive, although there still is a long way to go. The ix35 with combustion engine is available in the Netherlands at prices starting at € 27,495 (incl. VAT).

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

2014 good year for CNG in the Netherlands

Figures published by Aumacon show that CNG / green gas vehicles were the most popular alternative fueled vehicles in the Netherlands in 2014.

The largest vehicle category in the Netherlands in terms of sales remains the traditional gasoline car. 248,796 of these were sold in 2014. This is a drop of 6% compared to 2013. Traditional gasoline cars are slowly losing ground.
Diesel cars sales were better. 105,102 were sold in 2014, a growth of 1,5%.

The third category in the Netherlands in terms of sales is the hybrid vehicle (including plug-in hybrids and range extended electric vehicles). Compared to the top year 2013 sales decreased by 38% as a result of reduced fiscal stimulation. Despite this (as I wrote yesterday) the number of these vehicles on the road is still increasing.

Number four in the Netherlands in terms of cars on the road is LPG. Sales of LPG however are declining because the Dutch government no longer stimulates LPG despite verbally advocating its use. Sales dropped by 53% to 988. As a result the number of LPG vehicles on Dutch roads is decreasing. This is in sharp contrast to worldwide developments.

2014 was a great year for CNG / green gas vehicles. 3,232 CNG vehicles were sold, an increase of over 500% compared to 2013. Despite these impressive numbers CNG still has a long way to go to overtake LPG as the most popular alternative fuel.

Next are the fully electric cars. 2,982 of these were sold which is a 14% increase compared to 2013. Electric cars are slowly gaining market share.

Other than these fuels not much is happening in the Netherlands. When the first public hydrogen station was opened it was already known that the Dutch government would leased two Hyundai ix35's. No other hydrogen vehicles were registered in 2014.


The sale of cars on ethanol has come to a near complete stop in 2014: only one was sold compared to 17 in 2013.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Dutch electric vehicle registrations in 2014

The Dutch government has revealed registration numbers for electric vehicles in the Netherlands in 2014. The number of electric vehicles is still rising rapidly.

The number of fully electric passenger cars went up by 64% from 4,161 to 6,825. Especially the months of October and December saw a lot of new registrations. The number of registrations is often high in autumn in anticipation of increasingly strict requirements for fiscal stimuli.

While the number of plug-in hybrids went up almost sixfold in 2013, last year saw more normal, but still impressive growth. The number of plug-ins grew from 24,512 to 36,937 - a 51% growth rate. In contrast to electric vehicles, the number of new registrations in autumn was lower than average.

The number of electric light duty vehicles grew by an impressive 88% from 669 to 1,258. This makes this vehicle category the fastest growing. Here also October and December were top months. Both months saw more registrations than in the entire year of 2013.

The number of electric heavy duty vehicles and electric buses grew by 18% and 10% respectively. Most growth took place in the first four months of 2014. Possibly growth halted as a result of lower oilprices later in the year.

In terms of models, the Mitsubishi Outlander is the most popular plug-in hybrid vehicle. 15,725 of thse are now registered in the Netherlands. The second place is for the Volvo V60 with 9,707 registrations. The Opel Ampera is in third place.
The Tesla Model S is the most popular fully electric vehicle with 2,645 registrations, followed by the Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe.

A striking development is that the number of normal hybrids (such as the Toyota Auris and Prius) is no logner growing. The number of registered vehicles rose by only 0.3%: almost as many hybrids were unregistered as registered. The number of these vehicles is however still almost three times higher than the number of plug-ins and fully electric vehicles combined.