https://cleantechnica.com/2017/02/04/us-electric-car-sales-59-january-2017/
[How does this align with the fossil-fuel addicted new so-called U.S.
President and his Cabinet nominees? Are U.S. consumers voting with
their wallets now that there is a real set of plug-in options available
to them, and some dealers are finally putting plug-in vehicles in their
showrooms? Or is the the panic buying before the White House cancels
all federal incentives for electric and hybrid vehicles?
links, graphs and breakout of sales by model in on-line article]
US Electric Car Sales Up 59% In January 2017
February 4th, 2017 by Zachary Shahan
US electric car sales continue to climb to new heights in 2017. Growing
59% year over year (YoY), approximately 12,000 electric cars were sold
across the country in January, accounting for approximately 1% of US
auto sales.
The top five models accounted for approximately 40% of total US electric
car sales, as most models are still compliance cars that are not
designed or marketed to really pull in buyers — and aren’t even
available in most states.
Essentially, Tesla and GM are pulling the market forward. The Toyota
Prius Prime, though, is a top-of-the-line Prius that is fairly widely
available, is building off of the popular Prius name and reputation, and
is genuinely cost-competitive with (a better deal than) a conventional
Prius — especially once you take the US federal tax credit into account.
The Nissan LEAF — introduced all the way back in 2011 — is still hanging
in well above the crowd as well, though. Again, its success relative to
other models is quite simply due to its wide availability, the fact that
it was designed to be a competitive electric car from the ground up, and
some decent marketing/promotion.
Most of the remaining models on the market are hard to find outside of
California and Oregon, which makes any evaluation of the “US” EV market
still a bit odd. Can you imagine how the Ford F-150 would do if it were
only offered in one or two states?
The chart above and tables below provide plenty of information to
examine and ponder, but here are some bullet-point highlights as well:
Electric car sales of all types (fully electric cars and plug-in
hybrid electric cars) were up 59% YoY.
Plug-in hybrid sales were up 86% YoY.
Fully electric car sales were up 41% YoY.
The Chevy Volt saw a 62% YoY sales increase, and accounted for ~8%
of US electric car sales.
The Tesla Model S and Model X accounted for 10% and 8% of US
electric car sales (respectively), according to our estimates.
The Chevy Bolt is hopefully still very production limited, as ~1200
monthly sales is well below expectations. Given limited geographic
availability, though, it seems most logical that the model is still
heavily production limited for some reason — such as lack of battery supply.
