Electrified vehicles reach a 40% market share in Switzerland

Plug-in vehicles and hybrids have been having a banner year, increasing their market share quickly in several key markets. In trend-setting California, electrified vehicles reached a 20% share of the market in the first quarter of 2021, and Tesla made a particularly powerful showing—sales increased by 12.5% year-over-year, and Model Y was the third best-seller among all light vehicles. 

Above: Tesla's Model 3 (Photo by Vlad Tchompalov)

We thought that was pretty impressive until we saw the latest stats from Switzerland.

So far in 2021, battery-electric vehicles have captured 9.9% of the market, plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) have reached 8.3%, and hybrids have taken 20.6%. That’s a total of nearly 40% of the overall vehicle market, which is almost in the class of EV hotspots such as Norway and the Netherlands.

Switzerland has seen its EV adoption rate soar in the last year or two—the share of pure EVs went from a paltry 1.7% in 2018 to a healthy 14.3% in June 2021. The share of plug-in vehicles (EVs and plug-in hybrids) reached 23% in that month.

Above: A look at the carbon footprint in Switzerland of the Tesla Model 3 vs. Volvo XC40 vs. Audi A4 (Source: swissinfo)

The rapid turnaround is all the more amazing in light of the fact that, unlike most Western European countries, Switzerland offers no special incentives for EV purchases (a couple of the Swiss cantons—the equivalent of states or provinces—do have incentives, and the federal government has financed some infrastructure projects).

The Tesla Model 3 is by far the most popular EV, followed by the VW ID.3 and Renault Zoe.

According to multilingual media outlet swissinfo, the country had 5,700 public charging points as of March.

A recent survey by the trade group Swiss eMobility found that just over half of Swiss residents surveyed are likely to buy an EV in the next three years.

===

This article originally appeared in Charged. Author: Charles Morris. Source: Swiss eMobility