in Electric vehicles

Spain March 2022 Electric Car Sales and PHEV Sales

10.7% of cars and SUVs sold in Spain in March 2022 were plug-in electric, according to the trade association ANFAC.

Tesla Model 3, the best-selling plug-in passenger vehicle in Spain in March. Photo not taken in Spain. Photo: Noah Wulf

BEVs (all-electrics) were 5.2% (3090 units). PHEVs were 5.5% (3307 units).

It has been over a year since the last time I wrote about Spain — describing December 2020, a good month for plug-in vehicle sales all over Europe; in Spain it brought a BEV share of roughly 4% and a PHEV share of roughly 6%.

But for 2021 (the entire year), these figures were at 2.8% (BEVs) and 5.0% (PHEVs). Especially in the case of BEVs, Spain was lagging behind the rest of Europe.

This year, BEVs are doing better — in March 2022 their market share passed the 5% mark for the first time. But March was of course an end-of-quarter month, a typical “Tesla month” with large shipments of the Model 3 and Model Y arriving.

Top 5 in March 2022 (BEVs):
1. Tesla Model 3 (792 units)
2. Kia Niro EV (316 units)
3. Tesla Model Y (152 units)
4. Fiat 500e (148 units)
5. Kia EV6 (140 units

What is missing here? Well, the Volkswagen Group, obviously. You would need to scroll further down the list of best-selling BEV models to find the Volkswagen ID.4. And considerably further down the list to find the ID.3 (or its Spanish-branded but not Spanish-built twin, the Cupra Born).

In Germany, the wait time for these models is roughly one year, so I assume the problem is on the supply side.

The Renault Zoe and the Hyundai Kona Electric, once quite popular, did not make the top 5 (of BEVs) in March.

The locally made Citroen e-C4 is not far behind the top 5 for BEVs (it occupies one of the closely contested spots numbered #6 through #8 on the list). About 95 units were registered last month.

Stellantis makes at least three all-electric vehicles in Spain, mostly for export: besides the e-C4, this includes the Opel Corsa-e and the Peugeot e-2008; and there are reports that the production of the smaller Peugeot e-208 is also going to be moved to Spain.

Citroen e-C4


Top 5 in March 2022 (PHEVs):
1. Mercedes GLC PHEV (228 units)
2. Peugeot 3008 PHEV (220 units)
3. Mercedes A-Class PHEV (193 units)
4. Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross PHEV (151 units)
5. Jeep Compass PHEV (135 units

The popularity of the Hyundai Tucson in Spain — it was the best-selling car/SUV in March regardless of the powertrain — apparently does not extend to the plug-in hybrid variant, which did not even make the top 5 of PHEVs.

And a note about the general state of the Spanish new car market: in the first three months of 2022, or Q1 2022, the market (164,000 units) is down compared the the same period of 2021 (186,000 units) which was down compared to the same period of 2020 (219,000 units) which was down compared to the same period of 2019 (317,000 units).
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Sources: ANFAC, eu-evs.com, Faconauto.com