- Leaf sales slowed in September, while Volt sales more than doubled.
- Nissan still maintained its lead over General Motors in the green-car sweepstakes.
DETROIT — Nissan Leaf sales slowed in September, while Chevrolet Volt sales more than doubled — but Nissan still maintained a comfortable lead over General Motors in the green-car sweepstakes.
In September, Chevrolet sold 723 Volts, up from the 302 cars it delivered in August, when GM was changing over production at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant from the 2011 to 2012 Volt.
Nissan saw Leaf sales in September drop to 1,031 units, from 1,362 in August.
Nissan continues to hold a significant edge over GM in year-to-date sales, with 7,199 Leafs delivered since January 1, compared with total Volt deliveries of 3,895 since the beginning of the year.
GM earlier this month said the 2012 Volt was arriving at dealer lots across the country, but was selling quickly. "Most 2012 (Volts) are on dealer lots for less than three days," a GM spokesman told Inside Line in early September.
Responding Monday to an e-mail query from Inside Line, GM spokesman Rob Peterson said: "Nissan's sales target is 25,000 Leafs in 2011. (Their sales) should be higher than ours. Our target is to deliver 10,000 (Volts) and we're on target to reach that goal. Only 1 in 3 of the 2,100 dealers selling Volts have one in stock, with nearly 1,700 in transit. The pipeline from plant to dealership is filling up, making deliveries much more fluid."
David Reuter, vice president of corporate communications for Nissan Americas, told Inside Line: "We are on track to sell about 10,000 Nissan Leafs this calendar year, which is what we've consistently been saying we'd do since the car's introduction last December. Mr. Peterson would be better served by helping GM to sell every Volt he can rather than dramatically overstating a competitor's sales target."
GM cut the 2012 Volt's base sticker to $39,995, including an $850 shipping charge. Nissan raised the price of the 2012 Leaf to $36,050, including an $850 shipping charge.
Inside Line says: The race goes on.
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jaguarcat says:
07:16 AM, 10/07/2011
Both Nissan and Chevrolet are behind targets for Leaf and Volt. Unfortunately, till today, we do not hear, whether this is due to production problems (which wouldn't be uncommon for a new technology) or lack of demand. We know, that that re-tooling of the Volt plant took quite some time and caused quite some sales drop in summer. But was that really necessary, or was it to hide lack of demand? Seems like car makers spokespeople don't want to come out with definitive answers.
What I understand the least, is Nissan's move to increase the Leaf's price by 10 percent. It is now a mere 4000 $ from the Volt. The Volt seems to be the stronger, more luxurious car, and it comes with that built in insurance against "range anxiety". I assume, that most customers will pay that extra, and that Volt sales will outnumber Leaf sales, soon, if the pricing doesn't change again. That depends, though, on both cars being available at the dealers, and not limited due to production problems etc.
Jag
easym1 says:
09:05 PM, 10/04/2011
I would feel comfortable driving the VOLT with a gasoline back-up rather than a pure electric car like the leaf.
arthurbishop says:
12:59 PM, 10/04/2011
GM might be able to sell all 10k for this year. They've just started selling them in Canada, and now thoughout the rest of America. If it's selling as quick as they say, it should sell 10k easily.
joey39 says:
12:23 PM, 10/04/2011
@ veryhrm
Your posts are as misleading as the GM spokesman's. You're using numbers from April 2010, when in February 2011, a Nissan VP backed off the 20,000 sales goal. 25,000 is an ancient goal, if it was ever even a legitimate target. Nissan capped reservations last year at 20,000 so how exactly did it ever expect to hit 25,000 sales? Meanwhile, GM has had a goal of 25,000 as recently as winter 2011 (not April 2010).
That being said, Nissan is using just as much spin with its "10,000 goal since last December" line of BS. Do these people think they work in a media vacuum?
pchang7 says:
11:20 AM, 10/04/2011
I don't think it's a bad idea to have battery swaps, but you do realize that these batteries do not last forever right? Would you want to just go to a store to swap out your cell phone battery, or better yet your laptop battery with someone else's?
The charge inside a battery will eventually be depleted, and these lithium ion batteries used in cars is no different in that aspect, it will eventually fail. So again, would you really want to swap batteries with someone else at a station? I don't think so.
The idealistic way to do this would be to change the infrastructure. A hurdle that will never be overcome because there are too many factors against it.
1. People enjoy driving and using roads, but do not want to pay for it. No wonder the U.S. is last in raising taxes for road construction out of all industrialized nations throughout the world in the past 30 years.
2. There are still too many George W. Bushes hidden throughout our political system that have money in oil. They also have friends who will help them with political favors that will make sure this does not happen...not soon at least.
3. There is still no purpose to why people want to use EV's. Some of the pretentious crowd buy them to act smug about their success and owning an environmentally green car. While the rest is worried about gas prices. However, gas prices even with the 3 dollar hike in the past decade, it will not outweigh the cost of some of these 30k (after tax rebate) cars.
The best idea is to change the infrastructure to give off magnetizing currents, similar to those phone charging pads. Only have them in heavily-populated areas, so the car charges while the person is driving straight from the roads below them. This is the future.
nwng says:
10:50 AM, 10/04/2011
are they both selling whatever they can produced or they have cars sitting on the lot not moving?
I have a different vision for electric cars. instead of charging the batteries that stays in your car, which you still can, you will pull into a gas station and there will be a machine to swap out your batteries for a fresh one. And it takes about the same time to fill up a tank. The batteries that got swapped out will be recharged at the station and wait for the next electric car.
veryhrm says:
03:34 AM, 10/04/2011
A few roadbumps are causing Nissan to rethink its initial sales target for the all new 2011 Nissan Leaf electric vehicle. Throughout most of the year, the automaker was confident it would sell all 20,000 units allocated for the United States and now it's likely only half that amount will make it out of Nissan showrooms.
In a report by Automotive News, Nissan vice president of sales Al Castignetti estimates 10,000 to 12,000 first model year Leafs will be sold. The sales hiccups could be traced as far back before the Leaf even made it to Nissan showrooms. "It's different than anything we've ever done, launching the car in three global markets at the same time," Castignetti said. "We knew it wasn't going to be easy."
...
Read more: http://wot.motortrend.com/nissan-leaf-miss-sales-target-83883.html#ixzz1Zo8Cb59l
"
At the same time, the maker plans to continue expanding the availability of the Leaf, which it has until now been offering in just seven states. So far, Nissan has delivered just 4,000 of the high-profile battery cars, but it is rapidly ramping up production and could come closer to its original goal of 20,000 Leaf sales for 2011. "
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43811328/ns/business-going_green/t/nissan-sets-its-sights-big-goals/
Ok... i think that's enough for now.
veryhrm says:
03:15 AM, 10/04/2011
"Yokohama, Japan-based Nissan said last November it planned to sell as many as 25,000 units of the $32,780 Leaf in the U.S. during the model's first year. Through August, U.S. sales of the model totaled just 6,168. " from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-19/electric-vehicles-led-by-leaf-fail-to-connect-consumers-cars.html
Also,, in April of 2010 Nissan said they already had 8000 reservations. And were on track for 25k reservations before launch.
as seen here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/30/retire-us-nissan-leaf-idUSTRE63T06Q20100430
also here
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/04/30/nissan-reports-8-000-plus-orders-for-leaf-easily-expects-25-000/
a similar article adds that 25k was the sales goal.
http://www.carseek.com/news/april2010/Nissan-Leaf-sales-on-track/
Sooo... while it's impressive that IL called the two sides for comment... the record suggests that the snarky Nissan guy is not being forthright.
Since he's "VP of corporate communications" he probably has to stand up and hold his phone below waist level when talking so it's not too surprising. Would have been nice if IL called him on it though.
(and this is nothing against the Leaf... just sleazy executives, whatever their title)
widgetaviator says:
08:50 PM, 10/03/2011
I have now driven 2 Volts and several Prii. Both good, but the Volt is definitely the more seemless to drive. Both can be used as real cars and I would be happy the own either. The Leaf however is just a toy unless you have other cars to drive or never want to go anywhere. I'm 50 miles from work and anytime I'm out running errands I always seem to drive at least 100 miles. A 75 mile range with no gas backup is complety worthless to me. However to truly improve any hybrid they need to greatly improve the electric only range.
wikiwiki says:
07:00 PM, 10/03/2011
Compare the Volt to the Prius and all the other hybrids out there. The Leaf is the only true EV game in town.