Tesla likely Q1 US PEV leader with 4,750+ sales in North America; Nissan surges with LEAF in March in US
04 April 2013
With the US sales numbers for the first quarter of 2013 in, Tesla appears to be the leading seller of plug-in vehicles for that period, with more than 4,750 units of the model S sold in North America. (Earlier post.) (Tesla doesn’t break out sales by country at this time, so there are no US-specific figures from the company.)
GM posted sales of 4,244 Volt extended range electric vehicles in the US in the second quarter, representing an 8.4% increase year-on-year. March sales of the Volt in the US were weaker in March, with 1,478 units, compared to 2,289 units in March 2012, a decrease of 35.4%. (In Canada, GM sold 177 Volts in Q1, and 82 in March.)
Nissan, which sold 3,539 units of the LEAF battery electric vehicle in the US in Q1 (a 104.2% increase year-on-year), sold 2,236 LEAFs in March, a 286.2% increase from March 2012’s 579 units.
Toyota followed with 2,353 units of the Prius PHV plug-in hybrid electric vehicle sold in Q1, up 158% year-on-year. For March, Toyota posted 786 units of the plug-in hybrid, down 11.8% year-on-year. The company also sold 212 units of the RAV4 EV in Q1, 133 of those in March.
Ford sold 1,999 units of its three electric-drive vehicles during the first quarter: 419 units of the battery-electric Focus Electric; 414 units of the Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid; and 1,166 units of the CMAX Energi plug-in hybrid. The figures for March are 180 Focus Electric; 295 Fusion Energi; and 494 CMAX Energi.
Honda sold 46 units of the battery-electric Fit in Q1, and 45 units of the Accord PHEV plug-in hybrid. Figures for March were 23 units of the Fit and 26 units of the Accord.
Mitsubishi sold 625 units of the battery-electric i-MIEV in Q1, and 31 units in March.
Taken altogether, plug-in sales in the US reached about 17,800 units in the first quarter of 2013 (the uncertainty, again, surrounding the number of non-US Model S sales included in the 4,750 number). Of that figure, Tesla had about a 27% share, GM a 24% share, Nissan a 20% share and Toyota a 14% share.
Overall, light-duty vehicle sales for the US in Q1 2013 reached 3,688,662 units, according to Autodata, an increase year-on-year of 6.4%. Plug-in vehicles thus represented about 0.5% of the market.
The comments to this entry are closed.