The Leaf has now seen seven straight months of record sales in the US.
So, with that disclaimer out of the say, it is impressive that sales of the Nissan Leaf are up this September compared to last year. In 2012, Nissan sold 984 copies of the EV. This year, it sold 1,953. Nissan’s Travis Parman told AutoblogGreen that the Leaf has now seen seven straight months of record sales in the US (which means that each of the last seven months were higher than the months before, even though March was higher than April, for example). The Leaf also recently passed 35,000 total sales. Atlanta is coming to the fore as the country’s hottest Leaf market, taking the number one spot for the second month in a row. Parman also said that the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina and “all major Texas markets” also saw sales increases.
Turning to the Chevy Volt, the numbers aren’t as good, but still nothing to sneeze at. Last year, a whopping 2,851 Volts were sold in September. This year, the number was a more modest 1,766, meaning that the Volt saw a drop of 38.1 percent this September compared to last year. The September 2013 number is also a big drop from the record-setting 3,351 units sold in August. For the 2013 totals thus far, the numbers are almost equal: 16,760 for the Volt and 16,076 for the Leaf. Both vehicles are benefiting from big cost drops ($6,400 for the Leaf and $5,000 for the Volt) this year.
That wraps up the flash report on the grandaddies of the plug-in vehicle scene. In August, Toyota sold 1,791 Prius Plug-In Hybrids. Toyota hasn’t yet released September sales, but Bill Fay, Toyota Division group vice president and general manager, said in a statement that, “September was a solid month for the auto industry despite two fewer selling days.” We’ll see if that car beats the original plug-in duo when we write up our detailed report on last month’s green car sales soon. Now, if only we could get monthly sales data for the Tesla Model S, we’d really have a good idea of the US plug-in sales picture.
