In April, sales of electric vehicles in Ukraine fell 14 times compared to 2019. The problem is not money

In April 2020, a total of 38 electric vehicles were sold. All of them are new. The reason is that due to the quarantine Service centres of the Ministry of Internal Affairs do not accept documents for registration of used cars. And these are the cars that make up the bulk of sales in the Ukrainian car market.

In March, our expert Volodymyr Kulyk shared data and forecasts about the present and future of the electric vehicle market. He noted that if the quarantine is lifted in May, there is hope that the poor performance in March and April will be offset by later periods of sales growth. And the growth is likely to happen because electric vehicles are more economical and environmentally friendly than cars with internal combustion engines.

Many countries have seen the impact of quarantine measures on air quality. As there are far fewer cars on the roads, CO2 emissions have significantly decreased. In this regard, there is a desire to consolidate and improve the result. For example, the mayor of Tbilisi plans to post-quarantine to ban the movement of private transport on weekendsand in Germany they proposed to introduce 30% quotas for electric vehicles and limit the speed of traffic on motorways. All this, as well as many other things, will stimulate demand for electric transport.

What electric cars are being bought

According to the Association of Automobile Manufacturers of Ukraine "Ukravtoprom, 38 electric vehicles in a month This is 11 times less than in the semi-quarantine March and 14 times less than in April 2019.

What kind of electric cars they were:

• Audi E-tron (10 pieces);
• BMW i3 (7 units);
• Porshe Taycan (7 iner);
• Hyundai Ioniq Electric (4 units);
• Jaguar I-Pace (4 pieces).

In March, it was still possible to register used electric cars, so there were more sales - -. 409 carsof which 356 were second-hand. The leader among them was the Nissan Leaf (129 units) - all imported second-hand. In April, registrations stopped completely, which is why there was such a significant decline.

The number of sales of cars with internal combustion engines also decreased. In April, only 3.7 thousand new passenger cars were registered, which is 2 times less.

What it means

The current situation on the electric vehicle market is not good, but it is not entirely bad either. It is completely understandable. Ukrainians continue to buy cars (and in March, the market grew by 1/3 compared to 2019), but now only new models. We are very confident that as soon as it is possible to register used electric vehicles again, their sales will return to previous levels, and perhaps even start to grow. After all, those who could afford to buy an electric car will buy one. This will be complemented by incentives in the form of savings on fuel and maintenance, widespread encouragement of drivers and the creation of infrastructure, which we hope Ukraine will adopt from the EU countries.