2013 July Plugin Sales Discussion : Leaf 1864 ; Volt 1788

We have the final numbers (except Fiat 500e).

- 16% reduction in total sales compared to last month as the "big 3" see reduced sales for different reasons
- PHEVs narrowly beat BEV. This will continue until Leaf supply improves and Tesla starts delivering to US in "normal" numbers
- YOY % increase is still a healthy 118% and YTD is still a robust 168%







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What is your guess for July ?
- Will Leaf break out of low 2 thousands ? Is their enough inventory ?
- Will Volt maintain its 2500+ sales ?
- What do you expect from first full month of Spark sales - compliance territory or not ?

Here is the recap from June.

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Highlights :
- After a few months PHEVs overtook BEVs, mainly because of Volt's renewed better performance and Tesla shifting to EU
- BEVs are selling at 5 times the pace of last year because of Model S & a big jump in Leaf sales
- Leaf sales are still supply constrained as there is only a 35 day inventory with dealers
- Plugin Prius continues to perform poorly compared to last year and Toyota shows no signs of trying to improve things
- Compliance EVs continue to sell small numbers
- Ford C-Max Energi is also performing poorly compared to initial sales last year, with both Fusion & C-Max Energis selling about 400 a month
- It is not clear why Honda is even selling Accord PHEV with sales of just 50 a month.

I think they are considering the Spark-EV more for the global market than the USA market based on it's size, where they are making it, European sales stated direction. Heck Ford's FFE is being built in Germany now.

Complete dashboard: http://www.hybridcars.com/june-2013-dashboard/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interactive page here: http://energy.gov/articles/visualizing-electric-vehicle-sales" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Data (xlsx, csv) for your own graph making here: http://energy.gov/downloads/electric-and-hybrid-electric-vehicle-sales-december-2010-june-2013" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

evnow said:

What is your guess for July ?
- Will Leaf break out of low 2 thousands ? Is their enough inventory ?
- Will Volt maintain its 2500+ sales ?
- What do you expect from first full month of Spark sales - compliance territory or not ?

Click to expand...

I'll play!

2,300 Leafs -- GA incentive pushes sales somewhat but inventory distribution prevents a big jump.
2,550 Volts -- The 4K incentive keeps the sales rolling.
128 Spark EV -- Still totally inventory limited.

I've been following Volt inventory pretty closely. The factory should still be closed for the 2014 switchover. No 2014s are out yet. So it should be easy to figure out. So far sales seem very slow. I'm extrapolating and figuring an end of month surge and I'll still only predict 1900. From following its only looks like 1200 so far but I figure it must be higher than that.

The Leaf inventory had been edging up then went down pretty quick. I'm guessing a good month, I'll say 2600.

The spark EV nationwide inventory continues to hover around 88. I'm guessing that's close to a months sales. I'll guess 110.

dm33 said:

The spark EV nationwide inventory counties to hover around 88. I'm guessing that's close to a months sales. I'll guess 110.

Click to expand...

Interesting notes on the inventory.

The problem with compliance cars is that GM has no reason to sell more - esp. if they lose money. In the otherside, they won't market it much & dealers won't push it much. Ofcourse GM sells Volt - so that might change the equation a bit. We'll see. I guess compliance car level sales for rest of the year.

Part of CARB ZEV credits is how many hybrids are also sold. Honda sells 20-40 Fit EV's and the same number of PHEV might be the magic number.

Any good rumors on the July numbers ?

My guess:

Leaf- 2,174

Volt- 1784

Ian B

July is 1,864 according to insideevs.

adric22 said:

July is 1,864 according to insideevs.

Click to expand...

Disappointing, IMO, even though better than Volt's number of 1,788.

...And if you are into the sales competition for best selling plug-in in America, the Volt just barely fell into 2nd place on the year-to-date leaderboard, as their main competition from Japan in the form of the Nissan LEAF sold 1,864 EVs….which was also a bit of a pullback from their June sales mark of 2,225.

Nissan LEAF – 11,703
Chevrolet Volt - 11,643 (-60)...

GM is still carrying 120 days inventory of 2013 Volts.

Click to expand...

http://insideevs.com/chevrolet-volt-sales-soften-a-bit-in-july-1788-sold/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

GM clearly has a big problem with low demand for the Volt, even at highly discounted prices.

As to Nissan, has anyone seen a LEAF with a higher than a ~15% domestic content windshield sticker?

If battery packs and drivetrains still have to be sourced from Japan, there probably isn't enough production capacity (or economic incentive for Nissan, due to the high cost of Japanese production) to supply the potential US LEAF market.

edatoakrun said:

there probably isn't enough production capacity (or economic incentive for Nissan, due to the high cost of Japanese production) to supply the potential US LEAF market.

Click to expand...

In mid-July, they finally released the MY2013 (Smyrna) Leaf in Canada, which could be dipping into US supplies as well.

edatoakrun said:

As to Nissan, has anyone seen a LEAF with a higher than a ~15% domestic content windshield sticker?

If battery packs and drivetrains still have to be sourced from Japan, there probably isn't enough production capacity (or economic incentive for Nissan, due to the high cost of Japanese production) to supply the potential US LEAF market.

Click to expand...

I thought NISSAN had a battery plant in TN and were building the motors there too (youtube video showing it even) ... so why would they be getting these parts from Japan?

dm33 said:

I've been following Volt inventory pretty closely. The factory should still be closed for the 2014 switchover. No 2014s are out yet. So it should be easy to figure out. So far sales seem very slow. I'm extrapolating and figuring an end of month surge and I'll still only predict 1900. From following its only looks like 1200 so far but I figure it must be higher than that

Click to expand...

Wow -- calculations on the Volt! (And looks like we were both optimistic on the Leaf...)

Taking a shot at figuring out how many Leafs are being manufactured each Month:
May: ~1600 (sold 2100, inventory fell by 500 units)
June: ~2700 (sold 2200, inventory increased by 500 units)
July: ~1500 (sold 1800, inventory fell by 300 units)

From http://insideevs.com/july-2013-plug-in-electric-vehicle-sales-report-card/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (as well as May & June)

Some other random results as the numbers roll-in

Prius Pip has a decent rebound month - 817
Honda Fit EV, with hardly any inventory, pretty much sold what was left - 63 units
Honda Accord plug-in - useless as ever, no one wants, Honda doesn't stock - 54

/updated
Toyota RAV4 EV - 109
Mitsu i-MiEV - 46 (less than 100 left now)

July 2013 Plug-In EV Sales Report Card
http://insideevs.com/july-2013-plug-in-electric-vehicle-sales-report-card/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

spark ev - 103

Looks like July was a "dud". Nothing surprising - generally lower sales for the main players, for different reasons.

Statik said:

spark ev - 103

Click to expand...

Wow another GM faceplant. OUCH !!!!

KJD said:

Statik said:

spark ev - 103

Click to expand...

Wow another GM faceplant. OUCH !!!!

Click to expand...

I don't know that I would say that. Wasn't this the first month of availability, in limited locations?
Not saying it will sell well. I am just suggesting it is wayyyyyy to early to call it a failure.

Zythryn said:

KJD said:

Statik said:

spark ev - 103

Click to expand...

Wow another GM faceplant. OUCH !!!!

Click to expand...

I don't know that I would say that. Wasn't this the first month of availability, in limited locations?
Not saying it will sell well. I am just suggesting it is wayyyyyy to early to call it a failure.

Click to expand...

Yup, none yet at my local dealer on Sunday, but at least 11 Volts.

Edit: The dealer twelve miles from me has five Spark EVs (one 1LT, the rest 2LTs), another dealer 14 miles away has four (also just one 1LT).