
The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV continues to dominate the plug-in electric vehicle market with 21,708 of the vehicles licensed in the UK at the end of Q2 2016.
The Outlander PHEV makes up 33% of the total of 66,374 plug-in grant eligible vehicles on the road. In second place after the Outlander comes the pure battery-electric Nissan Leaf at 12,837.
In third place is the BMW i3 (4,457) which is available with a choice of drive trains: pure battery electric or a range extended version (where a petrol internal combustion engine is used to recharge the battery on long journeys).
The Renault Zoe (4,339) is fourth most common, followed by the Mercedes-Benz C350e (3,337) which has leapt ahead of the Tesla Model S (3,312) and Volkswagen Golf GTE (2,657) to take fifth place.
The Outlander, Mercedes-Benz C350e and BMW 330e were the only three cars to increase their licensed numbers by more than a 1,000 in Q2 2016.
Four of the five vehicles with the highest growth in licensed numbers over the quarter were plug-in hybrid versions of regular cars:
– Mitsubishi Outlander (PHEV) – 1,763
– Mercedes-Benz C350e (PHEV) – 1,439
– BMW 330e (PHEV) – 1,113
– Golf GTE (PHEV) – 687
– Tesla S (pure battery powered) – 486
This is the list of all 41 vehicles that are, or have been, eligible for the government’s plug-in car and van grant schemes and which were on the road in the UK at the end of Q2 2016 (the most recent date for which figures are available).
Rank | Make and Model | Q2 2016 | Q1 2016 | Q4 2015 | Q3 2015 | Q2 2015 |
1 | Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (all variants) | 21,708 | 19,945 | 16,100 | 14,099 | 12,066 |
2 | Nissan Leaf | 12,837 | 12,469 | 11,219 | 10,441 | 9,310 |
3 | BMW i3 (of which are range extended versions) | 4,457 (3,131) | 4,065 (2,855) | 3,574 (2,440) | 2,943 (1,940) | 2,484 (1,579) |
4 | Renault Zoe | 4,339 | 3,918 | 3,327 | 2,401 | 2,062 |
5 | Mercedes-Benz C350e | 3,337 | 1,898 | 628 | 128 | 19 |
6 | Tesla Model S | 3,312 | 2,826 | 2,087 | 1,346 | 1,047 |
7 | Volkswagen Golf GTE | 2,657 | 1,970 | 1,359 | 1,025 | 350 |
8 | Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid | 1,655 | 1,651 | 1,580 | 1,501 | 1,439 |
9 | Audi A3 e-tron | 1,634 | 1,445 | 1,218 | 1,033 | 570 |
10 | Nissan e-NV200 (all variants) | 1,487 | 1,243 | 1,047 | 896 | 705 |
11 | BMW 330e | 1,479 | 340 | – | – | |
12 | BMW i8 | 1,307 | 1,163 | 1,022 | 964 | 823 |
13 | Vauxhall Ampera | 1,267 | 1,261 | 1,272 | 1,279 | 1,250 |
14 | Volvo XC90 T8 Twin Engine | 813 | 561 | 38 | – | – |
15 | Renault Kangoo ZE | 785 | 755 | 740 | 731 | 719 |
16 | Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid | 475 | 454 | 395 | 361 | 336 |
17 | Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid (all variants) | 410 | 366 | 337 | 314 | 299 |
18 | Peugeot Ion | 405 | 383 | 374 | 371 | 368 |
19 | Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive | 303 | 193 | 162 | 157 | 61 |
20 | Mitsubishi i-Miev | 252 | 257 | 251 | 250 | 252 |
21 | Smart ForTwo Electric Drive | 215 | 214 | 212 | 216 | 215 |
22 | Citroen C-Zero | 213 | 192 | 167 | 199 | 205 |
23 | Kia Soul EV | 193 | 170 | 145 | 83 | 53 |
24 | BMW 225xe | 163 | 65 | – | – | |
25 | Volkswagen e-up! | 154 | 150 | 142 | 133 | 124 |
26 | Mercedes-Benz S500 Hybrid | 125 | 129 | 157 | 159 | 138 |
27 | Volkswagen e-Golf | 123 | 120 | 114 | 98 | 88 |
28 | Chevrolet Volt | 119 | 122 | 122 | 119 | 125 |
29 | Renault Fluence | 79 | 78 | 70 | 71 | 71 |
30 | Ford Focus Electric | 22 | 19 | 19 | 21 | 23 |
30 | Daimler Mercedes-Benz Vito E-Cell | 22 | 23 | 23 | 21 | 27 |
32 | Mia (all variants) | 15 | 15 | 15 | 14 | 12 |
33 | Toyota Mirai | 11 | 9 | 4 | 2 | |
34 | Volkswagen Passat GTE | 1 | 1 | |||
35 | BYD e6 | – | – | – | – | – |
= | BD Otomotiv eTraffic | – | – | – | – | – |
= | BD Otomotiv eDucato | – | – | – | – | – |
= | Citroen Berlingo EV | – | – | – | – | – |
= | Peugeot ePartner | – | – | – | – | – |
= | Smith Electric Smith Edison | – | – | – | – | – |
= | Mahindra e20 | – | – | |||
Total | 66,374 | 58,470 | 47,920 | 41,376 | 35,241 |
Note: Some of the vehicles above might have been bought without the grant. Some might be licensed to manufacturers and dealers rather than customers. The total number licensed is below the total number of grants claimed because of the lag between an order being placed and the car being delivered.
[source: RAC Foundation]