Electric Cars: Ford Claims A Big Share Of A Small Slice
Ford has set itself an ambitious target. According to a Reuters report,the company “expects to wind up with 11 percent of the U.S. market for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles this year.” Not next year. This year. By our calculation, Ford would have to sell more than 50,000 of the electrified cars this year to stand a chance. By end of October, it had sold a little over 20,000. They better get going.
Data compiled by our sister site Hybridcars show that Ford already reached the 11 percent goal for the month of October. Driven by strong sales of the Ford C-Max Hybrid that came in third after the perennial Prius and its smaller Prius c sibling, Ford held an 11.7 share of the market for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles. It looks like a lot were conquests from Toyota, Prius sales were down in October. But there are only two months left …
Even if Ford would triple its C-Max et al sales in November and December, it would not be enough to gain the 11 percent share. But who knows, with a huge fleet sale … Next year could be a different matter. Ford is poised to claim a significant share of the electrified car market, and could even help increasing the still anemic take rate of hybrid cars.
All hybrids taken together can barely muster a 3.1 percent share of the U.S. market. Plug-ins remain a hard sell at a homeopathic 0.65 percent market share.
P.S.: If you want the low-down on sales of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electric, CNG and even clean diesel sales, then you should make the Hybridcars Dashboard your first destination. Solid data, and the price is right.
P.P.S.: After this story was put to bed, Ford sent out a communique, saying:
“Ford projects November will be its best hybrid sales month ever with more than 6,000 units sold. Ford is expected to capture an all-time-high 11 percent share of the electrified vehicle market – an increase of more than fivefold this year alone. November marks the first full month the all-new C-MAX Hybrid, all-new C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid and all-new Fusion Hybrid are available on dealer lots.”
Hmm. According to our spreadsheets (see above), Ford already had a 11 percent share in October. And sorry, with “only” 6,000 sold in November, there would be some 26,000 to sell in December to reach that 11 percent for the year goal.
P.P.P.S.: Or maybe the problem is the (intentionally? unintentionally?) confusingly written statement by Ford that says:
“Ford expects to achieve all-time-high 11 percent share of electrified vehicle market – an increase of more than fivefold this year alone driven by C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid sales of 4,400 units projected for November.”
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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It will be interesting to see where C-Max sales land this month. Last month was a partial sales-month - C-Maxes weren't available until a couple weeks in, and some dealers didn't even see any. This month will likely be production constrained as well. Deliveries were held on all of the SEL models pending a reflash to MyFord Touch version 3.5, and at least around here the more loaded SEL models have been the most popular.
I think somebody at Reuters misunderstood, or somebody at Ford misspoke.