sales
-
There's lots of interest in the award-winning Tesla Model S electric luxury sport sedan about now. With production slowly ramping up, even the wealthiest electric-car fans have to wait as Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] works through its 14,000 reservations. So, perhaps the impatient among them may turn to that source of all secondary sales, eBay. Indeed, as of today, there are four Model S reservations offered for sale on eBay; last week, there were as many as eight. There's just one problem. Those reservations aren't transferable. After a note from our reliable tipster Brian Henderson, we...
-
November Plug-In Car Sales: Volt Falls By Half, Leaf SteadySales of plug-in electric cars fell slightly in November, with continued steady sales of the Nissan Leaf not enough to make up for a decline in Chevy Volt numbers. This month's total may not quite equal last month's plug-in sales of 6,784. The big unknown, however, is deliveries of the Tesla Model...
John Voelcker -
Nissan CEO Admits 2012 Leaf Sales Goal Won't Be ReachedFor many months, Nissan has said it would sell 20,000 Leaf electric cars in the U.S. by next March. Sales rates didn't seem to support that, and now Nissan has conceded that it won't happen. CEO Carlos Ghosn said that number "would not be reached," in an interview on Bloomberg TV in Mexico City...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Model S Production Ramps Up, Company Says In Earnings CallThe biggest question facing tiny Tesla Motors right now is whether it can ramp up production of its Model S all-electric sport sedan and deliver enough of them to paying customers that it can generate the income it needs to keep going. On the quarterly Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] earnings call this...
John Voelcker -
2013 Ford C-Max Energi Plug-In Adds To C-Max Hybrid SalesThe 2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid has now reached dealerships throughout the country, selling 3,182 units in October. But Ford had an "October surprise" in store: The company sold 144 of the plug-in hybrid C-Max Energi version as well. That car hasn't been driven by any members of the automotive media...
John Voelcker -
October Plug-In Electric Car Sales: Volt, Leaf Stay StrongThe good news for plug-in electric car sales just keeps on keeping on. In October, Chevy sold 2,961 Volts--the highest-ever single-month total--and Nissan continued a recent resurgence, selling 1,579 Leafs. Those numbers compare with 2,851 Volts sold in September and 984 Leafs the same month. That...
John Voelcker -
They pop up like weeds, these "Electric cars are failures" articles--and you just have to keep killing them. The latest is an opinion piece titled, "Why the Electric Car Failed," published last week in U.S. News & World Report. Author Michael Lynch identifies himself as a researcher for the petroleum industry. To judge by his confrontational tone in the comments, Lynch may have been caught off-guard by a flood of contradictory responses to his piece. This isn't uncommon when writers lack knowledge and perspective on how the auto industry works, and know little or nothing about the...
-
Honda Hybrids Hit The 1-Million Mark, After 13 YearsQuick, name a Japanese carmaker that's sold 1 million hybrid cars. Yes, OK, Toyota is a right answer. But there's another one, too, as of the end of September Automaker Honda announced yesterday that its total sales of hybrid cars had crossed the 1 million mark--just a month shy of 13 years from...
John Voelcker -
2013 Chevrolet Spark So Popular, GM Boosts ImportsThere was a time, not so long ago, when most Americans would laugh at the idea of buying a car just a bit longer than 12 feet. But now one minicar--the 2013 Chevrolet Spark--has sold so well in its first two months on the U.S. market that Chevrolet has had to increase imports. Currently made at a...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
High Gas Prices, High Incentives Boost Electric Car Sales In CAIf you drive a regular gasoline car in California, you’ll know that the past week has been far from easy, with gas prices peaking at over $5 a gallon in places. But while many car drivers were suffering unbelievably high gas prices, plug-in and electric car dealers across the state have...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Toyota Prius Hybrid Family: Which Models Are Most Successful?For 12 years, the Toyota Prius hybrid stood alone in the growing lineup of Toyota vehicles. Then, for 2012, the Prius model became a whole family of cars--four of them, in fact. So which of the new Prius family members is doing the best so far, and which kid is lagging and might benefit from some...
John Voelcker -
September Plug-In Electric Car Sales Surge, As Tesla Sells 200 (Or So)Sales of plug-in electric cars surged in September, after setting a new record in August. And this month's notable event was the projected delivery of 200 or more 2012 Tesla Model S all-electric luxury sport sedans to buyers. Tesla refuses to release monthly sales figures, as every other automaker...
John Voelcker -
When it launched back in 2010, the Nissan Leaf electric hatchback was criticized for its high sticker price, due in part to its expensive battery pack. Now Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has confirmed what had been widely rumored: Future models of the Nissan Leaf electric car will get an improved, cheaper battery pack, perhaps as soon as the 2013 model that will go on sale early next year. Talking to The Wall Street Journal last week, Ghosn said that the Japanese automaker was working hard to improve the battery pack in its first all-electric car. “There is a second generation of battery...
-
August Plug-In Electric Car Sales: Volt Surges, Leaf StaticWhile car sales often lag during August, when family vacations take priority, the Chevrolet Volt proved an exception to the rule last month. During August, 2,831 of Chevy's range-extended electric car found buyers--along with 685 Nissan Leaf battery electric cars. The third high-volume plug-in car...
John Voelcker -
Fisker Karma: No. 2 Best Selling 4-Door Luxury Car In Netherlands, But...After a week involving fires, financial woes and recalls, it looks like things may be looking up for Fisker Automotive: its 2012 Karma plug-in hybrid is the second best-selling 4-door luxury car in the Netherlands. As PlugInCars reports, Fisker’s founder Henrik Fisker is ecstatic. “How...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Will Chevy Volt Sales Hit 40,000 This Year (Ampera Included)?After being flayed for not achieving its 2011 sales goal for the Chevy Volt, you might think General Motors would shy away from further volume predictions for its innovative range-extended electric car. Not so. CEO Dan Akerson said in late June that the company thought it would sell 35,000 to...
John Voelcker -
How Many Karmas Has Fisker Built So Far? We Say 2,000-PlusFor roughly six months, Fisker Automotive has said it's sold "about 1,000" of its Karma range-extended electric luxury sedan, globally. Then, on July 31, we spotted a brand-new 2012 Karma at the Balboa Bay Club & Resort in Newport Beach, California--so new it still had dealer plates. Its...
John Voelcker -
Honda’s 2016 Civic Will Be Developed, Built In The U.S.With the yen weak against the dollar, Japanese automakers like Honda, Nissan and Toyota are working hard to relocate production of U.S. market cars to the U.S. Now it seems Honda has chosen the U.S. as its development base for the next-generation Honda Civic, due some time around 2016. The...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
It seems that Nissan isn’t the only automaker suffering from low electric-car sales figures: Mitsubishi is too. Yesterday, the Japanese automaker announced a temporary halting of shipments of its all-electric i minicar to French automaker Peugeot Citroen. Slightly smaller than the U.S.-spec 2012 Mitsubishi i, the European version of the four-seat car is available under the Mitsubishi brand as well as rebadged for Peugeot as the iOn and Citroen as the C-Zero. One of the first all-electric cars to hit the market, the Mitsubishi i was the highest selling electric car in the world for a...
-
Ford Focus Electric, Plug-In Hybrids Sold Nationwide In 2013Ford is the current king at dribbling out factoids on future products (though Honda's been taking lessons). But buried toward the bottom of its current press releases on all three of its plug-in electric cars is a sentence that notes, "The all-new C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid begins arriving this...
John Voelcker -
July Plug-In Electric Car Sales: Volt Steady, Leaf Lethargic (Again)Last month, sales of the Chevrolet Volt stayed strong while the Nissan Leaf languished. This month, it's more of the same. In July, Chevrolet sold 1,849 Volts, bringing its total for the first seven months of the year to 10,666--and its total U.S. sales since launch to 18,663 (including 7,671 in...
John Voelcker -
Small, High MPG, Hybrids, Plug-in Cars All Gain Sales In 2012With continued uncertainty about gas prices, more Americans than ever are buying smaller, more efficient cars. According to Automotive News (subscription required), the demand for small, high gas mileage cars has meant that sales of compact cars -- like the Toyota Yaris, Kia Rio and Chevrolet Sonic...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Elon Musk Bets Half Of All Cars Built In 2032 Will Be ElectricTesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has an enthusiastic base of fans who consider him a visionary. And with Paypal in the past, and SpaceX as well as Tesla today, Musk has an impressive track record. So ears perked up when he recently predicted that in 20 years, half of all new cars sold would be plug-in...
John Voelcker -
Nissan Leaf Electric-Car Sales Slump: What's Happening Here?Last year it was the Chevy Volt, which went through several months of slow sales before rebounding in the spring. This year, it's the Nissan Leaf, the world's highest-volume battery-electric car, whose U.S. sales have slumped to just 600 a month or less--and stayed there since early this year. Just...
John Voelcker