Sales of the Chevrolet Volt are down 30 percent in the first 11 months of 2014, and it may force Chevy to hand over the best-selling plug-in vehicle title to the Nissan Leaf, according to Autoblog.
Based on current trends, the Leaf is set to surpass the Volt in total units sold by either January or February. Both plug-in vehicles went on sale in 2010, with Chevy selling 71,867 Volts since and Nissan selling 69,220 Leafs. Currently, Volt sales sit at around 1,500-1,700 a month, while Leaf sales are at 2,500-2,700 a month.
Autoblog says it could take until March for the Leaf to surpass the Volt in sales, as January and February are usually slow sales months. Chevy isn’t planning on letting Nissan hold the title for very long, with its next-generation Volt to go on sale in mid-2015, likely beating an all-new Leaf to the market.
Comments
Couldn’t find one at my Metro dealer and they tell me that they haven’t been able to get them.
I have a friend who has 3 in their family and they tell me that most people are still ignorant of the fact that it can operate outside of electric only mode.
Thus it seems that there are many issues from distribution to marketing and communication of the important differentiating features of the Volt.
Interesting to note here is that while in US the Volt sales are expected to be down by about 20% in 2014 vs 2013 (once December numbers are released) in Canada Volt has a 50% growth this year vs 2013.
Clearly in Canada its because of the $5000 drop in price on 2014’s along with a $8500 credit in Ontario and Quebec.
Whats more important to note is that in Canada LEAF sold 30% fewer vehicles than the Volt. In my opinion its because people saw the value in the benefits of having an onboard range extender generator, better battery maintaince system (coolant cooled vs aircooled) and better warranty. Unlike in the key US cities where there are a lot of charging ports, Canada still does not have a lot of easily accessible charging ports — but it is getting better.
With the new 2016 Volt Gen 2 I think the Volt will kill the LEAF!
GM underutilizes tools in its arsenal to generate sales and promote its vehicles.
For example, the expected UAW bonus of $9000 — why isn’t 25% of it in a new vehicle credit to encourage employees to go out and buy a new GM vehicle?
Ditto for salary folks too.
Go to an GM parking lot and look at the vehicles in the parking lot and you can see there’s a huge opportunity for GM to generate some sales quickly.