The Dutch market saw in 2019 a stabilization with just 78 units less than 2018 for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles combined, resulting in a total of 523,000 units. If we look a bit deeper, we see that passenger cars saw a 0.6% increase, where the Light commercial vehicle had a drop of – 3.5%.
Who said mid-size sedans were out of fashion?
There was a real end-sprint in December (+ 96%!), mainly because of eager company car drivers that wanted to benefit of the 4% “Bijtelling” taxation bracket for Electrical vehicles, that will change to 8% from 2020 – which is still a big bonus compared to conventional petrol and diesel engines.
This has led to the Tesla Model 3 being the best sold car of the year and putting the brand from Palo Alto in the number 3 spot of most sold passenger car brands, with a market share of 6.9%!
Models that also benefitted from the taxation change were the Audi e-tron and Hyundai Kona EV, but not to the same extend as the Tesla 3.
Also telling is that the “new” brand MG managed to sell as many vehicles in December alone, as Lexus did in a full year.
No problem going green, if I benefit from it
If we look at the sales channels, we see that penetration of electrical vehicles is 23% in fleets and 5% for private customers. Bear in mind that the latter number also includes one-man companies, who are registered as private registrations when purchasing a vehicle. This might also be the reason why the Tesla Model 3 is also the most sold car for private customers. These are probably small entrepreneurs who benefit from the EV tax benefits. Normally, private customers opt for vehicles in different price and size brackets. For reference, the top 3 in 2018 consisted from the Renault Captur, Kia Picanto and Toyota Yaris.
Are there actual buyers left?
Special interest is there for the private leasing category, which now takes almost 40% of the private sales, and with that 12.3% of the total market. That leaves the private customers who straight purchase a car at only 21%. For reference, in 2010 this number was 49%. It shows that the trend of using, rather the possessing, is continuing in the Netherlands.
Anything else worth noting?
Toyota is steadily expanding, further increasing their sales with 3.7 thousand vehicles vs. last year, driven by product launches and the embracement of the private customers of hybrid vehicles.
Mercedes is reaping the benefits of the A and CLA classes, growing by 3.6 thousand registrations in total.
In the other corner we see Renault struggling heavily this year, due to a mix of an aging product portfolio and lasting WLTP woes. Across its model range, the fleet sales suffered the most. There Renault can absolutely use the Clio and Captur replacements, to provide a sales boost.
If we look at the different channels, it is interesting to see that Toyota has surpassed Kia, VW and Renault to become the biggest brand for private customers.
In True Fleets, Tesla is eating up the market shares of almost everyone ending at a commanding 12.3%, just a few units shy of VW.
So, will 2020 look the same? Probably not, as the Dutch market is always a bit of a rodeo ride, due to erratic behavior to tax benefits. The company tax changes for EV’s will show a smaller increase in comparison to 2019, specifically in fleet. Due to new EV’s in smaller segments, we can expect a pickup of the private lease contract in the A and B-segments for electrical vehicles, as in this channel the TCO compensates partly for the higher retail price.
