These were the 15 most popular electric cars in January

In January 2023, there were again more cars registered in Switzerland than in the same month last year. With 16,437 registrations, there were 3.4 percent more cars newly registered than in January 2022, the Swiss Auto Association announced this week.

That means there has been an increase from the previous year for five months in a row and it was the best start to the year since the start of the corona pandemic, they say.

Electric cars have started the new year well with a market share of 17.3 percent. The electric SUV Enyaq from Skoda of the VW Group was especially often registered.

Five of the seven best-selling e-cars in January come from the Volkswagen Group. There are seven German cars in the top 15. Only Hyundai's electric Ioniq 5 in third place prevented a complete Volkswagen triumph on the podium.

In Switzerland, Tesla had a weak start to the year. However, the American group of tech billionaire Elon Musk ships the majority of its cars towards the end of each quarter and especially towards the end of the year. By March at the latest, the Model Y electric SUV and the Model 3 midsize sedan could return to the top of the rankings as they did in 2022.

After already reaching record values ​​for the market shares of alternative drives in 2022, the share remained stable in January. With 2,840 electric cars (+33.6%) and 1,387 plug-in hybrids (-9.4%), the share of new cars that can be charged via the electricity grid is 25.7 percent.

So-called full and mild hybrids, which cannot be charged externally, were registered new 4,667 times, accounting for 28.4 percent of the total market, after 24.8 percent in all of January 2022 to a market share of 54.2 percent. According to the Swiss Auto Association, the trend towards such cars is likely to continue this year.

In 2023, the car market should also grow overall. According to the union, there are now signs of an easing of supply difficulties for chips and car parts. "Waiting times for new orders are also becoming shorter and more reliable," says Christoph Wolnik, spokesman for the association media. While e-cars in particular became significantly more expensive in 2022, prices are now likely to stagnate or fall.

For the whole year, Auto Schweiz does not expect to reach the pre-crisis level of 300,000 new registrations. Because in January, despite the sharp increase, 12.5 percent fewer cars were registered than in January 2020.

(oli/awp/sda)