If Renault has a 50,000 unit sales target for Zoe EV, it's going to miss it

When it came to sales of its Zoe electric vehicle, Renault may have been thinking Toyota Camry Hybrid numbers. What the French automaker will get is a fraction of that. Renault, which debuted the Zoe earlier this year, will sell about 10,000 of them this year, or about a fifth of its 50,000-unit target, Automotive News says, citing research company Inovey. Through the first nine months of the year, Zoe sales in Europe stood at about 6,600 units, or about 40 percent of what the Nissan Leaf sells in the US.

In fact, the Zoe, which is Renault's best-selling EV, is unlikely to hit its 50,000-unit annual target until the end of the decade, Automotive News says, citing a separate report from IHS Automotive. Zoe numbers should double to about 23,000 units next year and climb to about 26,000 in 2015, putting it on par with Tesla Model S sales this year (albeit not quite as fun). Renault is pricing the Zoe at about $21,000 in France, after government incentives and before you factor in the monthly rental lease on the car's battery.

This summer, Renault and sister company Nissan said they had together passed the 100,000-unit electric vehicle sales threshold worldwide, though more than 70 percent of those sales have been through Nissan.