Electromobility: Manufacturers are increasingly relying on electric drives

Many of the established car manufacturers missed the introduction to electromobility. Over the past five to seven years, startups like Tesla have often caught them cold. Only Nissan with its Leaf or BMW with its always courageous i3 were among the front runners; lost the pressure to rely even more on electric cars due to moderate demand. In the meantime the tide has changed and hardly any manufacturer still relies on combustion engines. In order to save time during development, some of the models that were planned as pure combustion vehicles were equipped with an electric motor. This is how Tesla started more than ten years ago and turned a Lotus Roadster into an electric fun vehicle.

Vehicles appear in a special electrical design

But the manufacturers were not really happy with these conversion design cars. And since mobile electrification can no longer be stopped anyway, more and more manufacturers are deciding to design vehicles with a special electrical design in order to be able to use the advantages in packaging. Electric vehicles in the so-called purpose design are based on a platform that is exclusively tailored to the specifics of an electric vehicle. Here, the vehicle is developed around the battery pack. This offers many opportunities, but it is expensive. Before that happens, conversion models will also be involved in the market for a while. The analysts at Jato Dynamics took a close look at their approvals and analyzed the market situation.

Currently in Europe only the Citroen C4, the DS 3 Crossback, the popular Fiat 500, Hyundai’s Kona Mini, the Opel models Corsa, Mokka and Zafira, the Peugeots 208, 2008 and Traveler, the Renault Twingo, the Toyota Proace models and Verso as well as the Volvo XC 40 both as a combustion engine and with a purely battery-electric drive.

Of the models mentioned, sales of the electric version increased steadily until the end of last year and their share has fluctuated around 30 percent since then. Since February of last year, some of them have also been offered as mild hybrids. The MHEVs have a 48-volt battery to electrically support the combustion engine, which reduces fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. A particularly popular small car with mild hybrid drive is the Fiat 500, with a sales share of 57 percent. The BEV models make up 40 percent and the pure combustion engine only accounts for three percent. With the Hyundai Kona, too, the trend is towards the electric model. On average, 67 percent of all Kona approvals in 2021 were for the BEV variant. The rest is divided between gasoline (15 percent), hybrid (8 percent) and mild hybrid (10 percent).

Volkswagen relies on the ID family for electromobility

It looks a little different at industry leader Volkswagen. In the previous model generation, the VW Golf was offered both as a combustion engine and, from 2014, as an electric model. The Golf is now a pure combustion engine, which is also offered as a plug-in hybrid. The position of the electric drive has been assigned to the ID family for a long time, and especially to the ID.3 Golf counterpart. Compared to the vehicles mentioned above, things look a little different with the VW Golf – at least at first glance. In percentage terms, the e-Golf could not displace its brothers with combustion engines as much as was the case with other manufacturers. However: by July 2020, the electric Golf sold better than all other BEV models in this comparison combined. And the ID.3, the first VW model developed as a purely electric vehicle, seems to continue this strong presence. Other models that are only offered as BEV variants, such as the Teslas, Renault Zoe, Nissan Leaf or the Mercedes EQ models, were not taken into account for this comparison.

Still, it is impressive that one of Volkswagen’s BEV models was the front runner in this comparison almost every month. Only the Hyundai Kona has occasionally managed to leave the Wolfsburg phalanx behind. In August 2020, 15 more units than the e-Golf were sold, in November 2020 it was 25 and in March 2021 even 948 units more than the ID.3. The first Volkswagen in purpose design does not seem to be necessarily more successful than the converted Golf. Rather, it probably continues its success story. There is no doubt that all-electric vehicles will prevail against the ever more expiring conversions.

You can see in the video: Robust and full of power – this is how many Americans want their pick-up to be. But can you convince real guys with an electric car? A Ford F-150 with an electric motor is supposed to do just that – by pulling ten railroad cars.