It was a big downer last month, with ALL plug-in sales decreasing, some worse than others.
Sales, compared to the previous month, looked like this:
- Chevy Volt: DOWN 44% (1,394 vs. 2,511)
- Nissan Leaf: slightly down by 10% (2,881 vs. 3,186)
- Plug-in Toyota Prius: DOWN 57% (353 vs. 818)*
- Tesla Model S: who knows? I’m thinking about dropping it.
- Cadillac ELR: DOWN 43% (111 vs. 196)
- BMW i3: almost unchanged (1,022 vs. 1,025)
- Ford Fusion Energi: DOWN 48% (640 VS. 1,222)
- Ford C-Max Energi: DOWN 36% (1,050 vs. 831)
- Chevy Corvette Stingray: down 8% (2,679 vs. 3,060)***
*Quite honestly, if this didn’t carry the Prius name, I wouldn’t understand why people buy it at all.
These numbers reflect what I’ve been seeing all month. Even very experienced salespeople have been struggling to produce a fraction of their usual output. Traffic at the dealership has been down, in a striking fashion. I had heard many other dealerships were experiencing similar slow-downs. The numbers seem to prove that out. Out of all the plug-in vehicles I track, the only ray of sunshine seems to be the Nissan Leaf and the BMW i3.
The Leaf, coming off six months of sales above 2,000 units, dropped only 10% and still posted more sales last month than any month of Volt sales except for August of 2013. That month was the only time the Volt posted more than 3,000 sales, in a single month. For the all-time leader in U.S. plug-in sales, the year-to-date sales showed steadily increasing volume, until a precipitous drop last month. The Plug-in Prius, arced through the year, starting at a lowly 803 units in January, reaching a respectable peak of 2,692 units in May and then experiencing a steady decline back to 818 in August, mirroring its climb. Then the bottom fell out last month, with a paltry 353 sold. The Cadillac ELR has been pretty anemic and dealers are starting to offer extended demonstration drives and then discounting those units substantially. The one we test drove for the upcoming review listed at $80K but was discounted to $57K within a month of our drive. After a slow start, the BMW i3 jumped from the mid-300’s to over 1,000 units. This month, it repeated above 1,000 cars sold with a drop of only 3 units. The Fusion Energi and C-Mac Energi from Ford, like most of the other EVs last month, posted steep declines in sales.
What’s going on here? As I mentioned, my observations lead me to believe this slump is affecting more than just EV sales. It seems to be across the board. In the case of the Volt, are the hints about Volt 2.0 starting to hurt sales? Having worked for Apple in the past, I am familiar with sales dropping as anticipation for the new device builds. Do you think that has anything to do with Volt sales languishing?
Sales, compared to the same month a year ago, looked like this:
- Chevy Volt: down 21% (1,394 vs. 1,766) .
- Nissan Leaf: up 48% (2,881 vs. 1,953)
- Plug-in Toyota Prius: DOWN 69% (353 vs. 1,152)
- Cadillac ELR: (did not exist a year ago)
- BMW i3: (did not exist a year ago)
- Ford Fusion Energi: down 15% (640 vs. 750)
- Ford C-Max Energi: down 11% (677 vs. 758)
- Chevy Corvette Stingray: way up 297% (2,467 vs. 831)
Gas prices continue to decline with the end of the Summer season but do not seem to be impacting EV sales.
