I’ve been playing with numbers, now that the sales data for plug-in vehicles for January 2019 is trickling out. 17,109 new plug-ins sold last month.
You know what that means…SPREADSHEET TIME!
In January 2018, 12,009 plug-in vehicles sold in the U.S. In 2019, 17,109 plug-in vehicles sold in the U.S. That’s a 42.4% increase, January vs. January. Using that as my growth factor, I took each month’s sales in 2018, increased by the growth factor, and used the result as the corresponding month’s estimated sales for 2019. Adding all those factored months, resulted in estimated 2019 sales at 512,743 sales in 2019. The actual cumulative sales figure, dating from December 2010 (when the Volt & Leaf were introduced) to the end of 2018 totaled 1,126,168 vehicles. Based on my estimate, that means the total cumulative number of plug-in vehicles sold in the U.S., since 2010, should reach 1,638,911 by the end of 2019! So just 12 months or so, after we hit the 1,000,000th plug-in, we should exceed 1,500,000. Exciting times indeed!
Here are a few of the flaws, in my model:
- January is a notoriously bad month for EV sales. Yes, I am comparing January 2018 to January 2019 to get my “growth factor,” so I expect this to change every month. My model will use each 2019 actual month’s sales to recalibrate the growth factor, and in this way, expect to get more accurate numbers as we get a few more months under our belts.
- The percentage increase will not be the same for each month, but the recalibration will help improve accuracy, as months go by.
- The last five months of 2018 saw a huge increase in plug-in sales, due to the delayed ramp-up of Tesla’s production capabilities for the Model 3. It is doubtful we will see any legacy auto manufacturer have an increase in plug-in sales like that, this year…but who knows?
- Possibly offsetting the Model 3 ramp up, in my opinion, is the number of new plug-ins to be released this year and the ramp up of recently introduced models. These could start to increase sales at a pace that would allow new models’ sales performance, joining together, to offset the Model 3’s 2018 performance. Hopefully, this will balance out any variance caused by #3 above.
- GM is halting Volt production and Ford has already dropped the C-Max Energi, which both sold well. Again, new models entering the market may make up for this.
- It has also been mentioned that the phase-out of the federal income tax credit may slow things, but I am optimistic that new models, possibly adding the option for smaller battery packs for those who don’t need 200+ miles of range and other things may help offset this phase-out, since it affects only two manufacturers currently (pun intended).
- Finally, there’s the “S curve of innovation“…
Stay tuned. Each month, I’ll update this and start trying to predict when the U.S. will get it’s 2 millionth plug-in on the road.
