Lithium Race: Tesla Model S Was The Best Selling Electric Car In The World In December 2015.

  

  InsideEVs reports that Tesla Model S was the best selling electric car in the world in December 2015. Even being much more expensive, it has overtaken Nissan Leaf and confirms the trend that we have discussed before: consumers are ready to pay for the quality. Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV was third in December, followed by BYD's QIN. BYD backed by Warren Buffett has already become the number one in the world EV producer and China is solidly on track to become the largest electric cars market in the world. We need better electric cars priced around $30k - GM Bolt and Tesla Model 3 will ignite the mass market for EVs now in the West. The next wave for EVs is coming from China now: 28 companies are already making 51 models of electric cars.

Lithium Race: All Electric Cars Made In China.

  

  "Even before Tesla Gigafactory is coming online in 2017 we have already "Lithium Market Upheaval in China". My outrages Lithium price of $15 per MT of LCE in 2016 is not so dramatic any more: Joe Lowry has recently reported that LiOH is priced in some deals in China at $20k per MT already. Time is to check where all this lithium goes into before BYD, Foxconn, Boston Power, Samsung and A123 with their Megafactories plus 17 new startups in Lithium Batteries in China are coming online. As you can see, from the data provided by ChiaAutoWeb Electric Cars in China are already growing very fast in numbers of different models and sales. BYD backed by Warren Buffett is holding the first place and I expect China to become the largest electric cars market in the world early this year. It is all happening very fast even before Tesla has moved to build its tesla Model 3 in China.   International Lithium is building vertically integrated lithium business with Ganfeng Lithium. Read more."

Lithium Race: Elon Musk Wants To Build Tesla Model 3 Electric Cars In China.

"Elon Musk is looking for the Tesla Motors factory place in China and the production could be started in 3 years time. He is going where the largest auto-market is and China will welcome him with open arms. We have the state-level military plan to build the new strategic industry in China - Electric Cars in action. Why compete with ICE Age dinosaurs if China can leapfrog straight forward into the Next Industrial Energy rEVolution? 75% of Lithium Hydroxide is controlled by China now, it goes into Tesla Motors lithium cells made by Panasonic. Ganfeng Lithium supplies Panasonic with lithium materials as well as Warren Buffett's backed BYD, LG Chem and Samsung among many others. International Lithium is building vertically integrated lithium business with Ganfeng Lithium. Watch the video"

InsideEVs:

Tesla Model S Was World’s #1 Selling Plug-In Electric Car In December 2015

December 2015 was the month of Tesla Model S and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV globally, as tallied by the latest EV Sales Blog report.

It’s estimated that Model S sales nearly hit 8,300 worldwide, while Outlander PHEV surged to over 7,000. Both models differ significantly, as the Tesla is all-electric sedan, while Outlander is a plug-in hybrid SUV. We hould note, that the Outlander PHEV isn’t available in the U.S., so its sales are even more remarkable.

Both the Model S and Outlander PHEV noted strong demand in December, likely due to a few European countries changing incentives policy.

In third, with 5,500 sales, was BYD Tang – another plug-in hybrid SUV, but this time Chinese and limited to China’s market.  Interestingly, the Nissan LEAF finished barely ahead of the BMW i3. Generally speaking,  the spots on the sale chart gets tight in the 3,000s.

December was also a record month with more than 86,400 sales! That’s 134% more than the 37,000 sold in December 2014.

(1) – Includes Chevrolet Volt I and II, Holden Volt, Opel and Vauxhall Ampera;

World’s Top 10 Selling Plug-In Cars – January-December 2015 (data source: EV Sales Blog)

If we compare numbers for 12 months, the Tesla Model S secured another win as the #1 selling plug-in electric car worldwide in 2015! We must just note that 51,390 is slightly different than Tesla’s 50,366 based on three confirmed quarters and the fourth quarter being estimated, as worldwide data can only be tracked by a mix of registrations reported in a country when OEM-direct data is not available, which can lead to some variances due to delays/differences in sales date recognition.

Nissan LEAF sales dropped in 2015, enabling the growing Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV to nearly take the second best spot.  We imagine that the new 30 kWh version of the LEAF will be able to sustain the model enough to hold onto the number 2 spot in 2015.  BYD now has two models – Qin and Tang in the top 10.

Finally we move to car manufacturer ranking:

World’s Top 10 Plug-In Car Manufacturers – 2015 January-December (data source: EV Sales Blog)

Chinese company BYD is the largest player these days, and that won’t change in 2016 if they truly intends to double sales this year – a boast made by no other OEM.

Tesla Motors is in second place, while poor Nissan not only lost its first place position, but it fell all the way to fourth (at least according to estimations).

In total, 2015 ended with some 549,000 sold! Compared to nearly 318,000 in 2014, the market expanded by over 72%.

Source: EV Sales Blog