Sales of Plug-in Electric Cars Were Strong in August

2015 Nissan Leaf (Credit: © Nissan)

So far, there are few plug-in electric cars for sale in the United States. Despite that fact, August was a particularly strong month for sales. The biggest news had to do with the Nissan Leaf, which boasts being the top-selling electric car in the entire world. The Leaf actually experienced its best month of sales in the United States with 3,186 units sold, which is phenomenal since the model has also seen year-over-year sales increases for 18 months in a row. Such data shows that claims about electric cars just being a fad are just that, claims.

The Chevrolet Volt also saw solid sales for the month of August, with 2,511 units scooped up by customers. It marked the highest number of sales the electric range-extended model has seen since August of 2013. So far, 13,146 Volts have been purchased in 2014. It’s possible that with the 2016 Volt on the way, sales will increase even more in a little over a year.

The newest plug-in electric vehicle, the BMW i3, saw an incredible month of sales during August. For the previous three months, the luxury EV saw sales totaling around 350 units each month. For whatever reason, August brought a huge surge in sales with 1,025 units purchased by customers. That increases the all-time sales total for the i3 to 2,082.

Since Tesla does not supply sales information for the Model S, industry experts must rely on estimates. Once again, they were pegged at 1,200 units delivered to consumers during the month.

Finally, sales of the Cadillac ELR, which is a range-extended electric vehicle like the Volt, added up to 196 units for the month. So far, only 774 units have been sold since the car launched into the market. The Mitsubishi i-MiEV also saw slow sales for August, thanks to 20 units that were delivered to consumers.