sales
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Sales figures for plug-in cars in the U.S. crossed the 100,000 mark four months ago, but in the U.K., the government has announced that it will end plug-in car incentives. Some point to poor sales and an apathetic buying public. One trade organization claims existing grants of £5,000 ($8,100) per plug-in vehicle aren’t enough to entice fleet and private buyers from high-efficiency diesel alternatives. But what really went wrong? In reality, poor advertising, a lack of education, and a misinformed media are all to blame for low electric-car sales. Diesel’s market share Unlike...
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Tesla Model S Was Best-Selling Car In Norway For SeptemberWell, here's a first: The best-selling car in Norway is the Tesla Model S. Not the best-selling electric car. Not the best-selling car with a plug. For the month of September, the Tesla Model S was the best-selling car, period. Silicon Valley startup electric-car maker Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] sold...
John Voelcker -
California Car Dealers Slam Tesla For Website Pricing TricksState and national auto-dealer groups have been battling Tesla Motors for four years now. The dealers want to stop Tesla from selling its electric cars directly to buyers, and are working to change state laws so Tesla will have to conduct all sales through independently-owned third parties--which...
John Voelcker -
Plug-in Electric Car Sales In Canada, Aug 2013: Volt Charges AheadIn July, we tentatively crowned the Tesla Model S as the top-selling plug-in electric carmaker in Canada, reasoning that the Muskmobile would top the 42 nationwide sales reported by the Volt and the Leaf. And we were right -- by the skin of our teeth. Government registration records showed 43 new...
Matthew Klippenstein -
Ford C-Max Hybrid Sales Seemingly Not Hurt By Fuel-Economy ShortfallDespite having its mileage ratings lowered, the Ford C-Max appears to still be popular with customers.
Stephen Edelstein -
FINAL UPDATE: Plug-In Electric Car Sales For Aug: Volt, Leaf Hit New Highs, Total Exceeds 10,000Sales of the two highest-volume plug-in electric cars soared in August, with both the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf setting all-time monthly sales records. And two Toyota plug-ins set sales records as well. The Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid sold more than it has all year, and the low-volume RAV4...
John Voelcker -
Electric cars achieved another milestone recently: Plug-in vehicles on American roads now outnumber the gas stations they whiz past on the roadside. We estimate the watershed (oil-shed?) event took place in early July--though there are some asterisks, as we'll discuss below. As early as next year, electric-car sales in the United States each year could top the national gas station count. That would make it possible for electric-car fans to create a sort of "Gas Freedom Day," much as some Americans today celebrate the annual "Tax Freedom Day." Plug-ins lead gas stations, 120,000 to 119,000*...
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Tesla: As Disruptive To U.S. Car Market As Toyota, Nissan Were?In its decade of existence, electric-car startup Tesla has accomplished many things the auto industry didn't think it could do. But could Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] be as disruptive to the existing industry as were Toyota and Nissan, the two largest Japanese car importers during the Sixties...
John Voelcker -
Half Of All Electric Cars Are Sold In 5 Cities; Can You Name Them?Different vehicles appeal to different markets. More than half of all Chevrolet Suburban extra-long full-size sport utility vehicles, for instance, are sold in the state of Texas. So where do plug-in electric cars tend to cluster? Not surprisingly, in progressive regions with activist governments...
John Voelcker -
Plug-in Electric Car Sales In Canada, July 2013: Tesla On Top?July marked the 237th anniversary of the American Republic, and the 146th birthday of Canadian Confederation. While it could also have marked another month for the Chevy Volt as the best-selling Canadian plug-in electric vehicle, when the vehicle registration data comes out, we may see the Tesla...
Matthew Klippenstein -
Plug-In Electric Car Sales For July: Leaf Up, Volt Down (FINAL UPDATE)Sales of plug-in electric cars continued at a relatively steady pace in July, keeping the sector on track for something near 100,000 sales by the end of the year. While last month's half-year total wasn't quite enough to double the 2012 total of 53,000 electric cars, sales are now running at an...
John Voelcker -
Plug-In Electric Car Buyers Very Satisfied With Cars: ReportA new report issued today on the current status of plug-in electric cars suggests that buyers are very happy with their cars, and plug-in sales are rising faster than hybrids sales did after they were launched. "Customer experiences have typically been extremely positive," says the report, citing...
John Voelcker -
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Above is a graph comparing the relative sales volumes of hybrids (starting in 2000) to those of plug-in electric cars (starting in 2011). It comes from the U.S. Department of Energy, which tweeted the image last Friday. (We're not sure why the units on the vertical axis say "USD," which stands for U.S. Dollars--the data is clearly total sales.) 14 models, 9 makers The cars include battery-electric, range-extended electric, and plug-in hybrid cars sold by all makers (14 different models from nine auto brands as of June). It's not the first such...
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Tesla Model S: Canada's 2nd-Best-Selling Plug-In Electric CarReaders of our monthly analysis of the Canadian plug-in electric car market know two things well: a) the Chevy Volt dominates, with sixteen consecutive months of sales leadership; and b) Canadian plug-in figures are hard to come by. Our posts on June plug-in sales in the United States and Canada...
Matthew Klippenstein -
Sales Surprise: Battery-Electric Cars Are Outselling Plug-In HybridsPoring over monthly sales figures for plug-in electric cars--and our six-month summary--the data points out an unexpected fact. Did you know that pure battery-electric cars actually outsold plug-in cars that also have engines? From January through June of this year, the combination of 9,839 Nissan...
John Voelcker -
Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada, June 2013This past June marked the 20th year since a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup, a dry spell even longer than the country's last World Series title. June also marked the Chevy Volt's 16th consecutive month atop the Canuck plug-in sales charts. Thanks to a June sales surge, the car GM designed to...
Matthew Klippenstein -
Subaru Swamped By Demand For XV Crosstrek In U.S., Hybrids In JapanIf any carmaker should already have had a hybrid in its lineup, it's Subaru. We've said that before, and before the end of the year, we'll know much more about the 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid that was unveiled at last spring's New York Auto Show. But it turns out that Subaru now has two...
John Voelcker -
June Plug-In Electric Car Sales: Year Won't Quite Double 2012With half the year now gone, are plug-in electric cars on track to double their sales last year? Not quite. As of the end of June, roughly 41,000 plug-in cars had been sold in the U.S. That number would need to be closer to last year's total of 53,000 to keep sales on pace to double the 2012 total...
John Voelcker -
Rarely has any carmaker launched a car as obviously unloved as the Ford Focus Electric, the battery-electric conversion of a five-door Focus compact hatchback. As a company, Ford does not believe battery-electric cars will have much of a future for many years to come. Unusually for a new car, it deliberately said that the Focus Electric would not sell well--and, indeed, the company's prophecy appears to have been fulfilled. So it's hardly surprising to hear that Ford will make no updates at all to the 2014 Focus Electric. The Detroit News called Ford's lack of changes an "unusual non-move for...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada, May 2013The Canadian plug-in electric vehicle market in May was a good news/bad news sandwich: Sales held roughly steady from April, but dropped 40 percenton a year-over-year basis. Rounding out the month with some good news, May almost certainly marked the sale of the country's 3,000th electric car from a...
Matthew Klippenstein -
Are Electric Cars A Sales Failure, Or Sold Out Due To Demand?You see it all over: the meme that "electric cars are a sales failure." Yet California is experiencing shortages of electric cars, with many dealers saying they've entirely sold out of plug-in electric cars. Some Nissan dealers in Portland, Oregon, even say the Leaf electric car is now their...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Loses Legal Battles To Texas, North Carolina DealersWin some, lose some. Tesla's had a very good year thus far, but it was recently dealt legislative defeats in two states where it had hoped to sell its electric cars. In Texas, the state legislature declined to make an exception to existing rules that make it illegal for automakers to sell cars to...
John Voelcker -
May Plug-In Electric Car Sales: Nissan Leaf Passes Chevy VoltPlug-in car sales continued at a steady pace in May, with early estimates of perhaps 6,500 to 7,000 sold overall. As always, precise figures are impossible because Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] does not report monthly sales as every other carmaker does. We'll refine our totals as more reports come in...
John Voelcker -
Audi Startled By Tesla Sales Success? Deleted Press Release Seems To Say SoIt may be that short sellers and naysayers aren't the only ones a bit surprised these days at the positive press received by electric-car maker Tesla. Yesterday, Germany luxury-car maker Audi issued a rather unusual press release in which it pointed out that it sells more cars than Tesla Motors...
John Voelcker