General Motors has announced Volt sales for the month of November, 2012. Compared to the same month one year ago, sales have increased by 33.4%, totaling 1,519 Volts in 2012 versus 1,139 in 2011. Year-to-date sales have increased 239.1%, when compared to 2011 (20,828 versus 6,142).As you can see, things really dropped off in November. GM had been running some very sweet leasing deals and the expiration of those may have affected sales negatively. There was also a recent three week shutdown of the manufacturing facility, due to a perceived oversupply. With 2012 coming to an end, I’m going to go out on a limb and say December will be a big month. Gotta get those tax incentives before the end of the year!
UPDATE: I read an old conservative blog today that pissed me off entitled, “Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf: Sales Flop – Updated Monthly.” I’m so tired of B.S. like this from conservatives, I had to add the Corvette to the chart. I don’t think anyone considers the ‘Vette a flop…
There was a big drop in January of this year, probably attributable to negative mentions in the conservative media outlets about a Volt that caught fire after an accident (three weeks after!). The fire has since been investigated by GM and the NHTSA and the hubbub appears to have been an overreaction by the right-wing media trying to exploit a political advantage out of the incident. Bob Lutz wrote an article about the media firestorm (sorry about that) which was posted of the Forbes site. (in case you didn’t know, Mr. Lutz is a retired Vice Chairman from GM who spearheaded the Volt project and a regular contributor to Forbes) I was impressed when I heard how GM responded to this. GM offered to buy back any Volt if the customer was concerned enough to want to return it. They then went on to design an additional shield around the battery. This shield was added to existing Volts and was installed on all new Volts during manufacturing.
I also think there may have been a secondary reason for the drop last January. Anyone purchasing a Volt at that time would have had to wait a full year before getting the income tax credit of $7,500 available to purchasers of electric vehicles.
Prior drops in sales volume were explained like this:
- April 2012: April is a traditionally weaker car sales month than March. (I’m not buying this…)
- July 2011: Manufacturing facility closed for June and July to retool for higher production.
I still feel many dealers have not gotten behind the Volt. Salespeople are, for the most part, uninformed about the vehicle. When I visited a Nissan dealership, while first looking at electric vehicles, I found that the dealership I visited had a Leaf ‘expert’ salesperson who was up-to-speed on the features, benefits, tax incentives, and government programs available to Leaf buyers. I’d love to see all dealerships have a salesperson who specialized in electric vehicle sales. Nothing is a bigger turn off than going to a dealership to learn more and find out the salesperson knows less than you do!
Shameless plug of the day: If you’re in the Dallas / Fort Worth area, I highly recommend Classic Chevrolet in Grapevine. Specifically, I dealt with Kevin Reese (214-688-8692) and found him to be helpful, knowledgable and enthusiastic about the Volt. I also recently spoke with Eric Bryant (817-421-7218), the General Sales Manager at Classic and he said they are working to become the #1 Volt dealer in the state. I think they’re well positioned to do just that. If you speak with either of the gentlemen, tell them Buzz said “Hi.”
