The competition between the Volt and the Nissan Leaf sales continues to be of interest, it seems, as the numbers are carried in a lot of automotive blogs. The Leaf’s July sales were lower than in the previous month but at 931 they topped the Volts anemic July sales of 125. Both Nissan and GM claim that the low year-to-date sales are due to lack of production and that the sales would be much greater had more cars been available. A comment from Chevrolet Communication to the Torque News Blog said that “Our sales of 125 Volts this month are exactly what we anticipated to sell……” . and that revamping currently underway will allow them to have production capacity for Volts and Amperas (no specifics about the production capacity split): “…this year will increase to 16,000 units. In 2012, global production capacity is expected to be 60,000 vehicles with an estimated 45,000 delivered in the United States.” See here for more detail
This statement was challenged by Mark Modica, associate fellow at the National Legal and Policy Center, who said he found about 125 Volts for sale.
“I decided to call a few dealers within 75 miles of my location to determine what the true situation was. I stopped my research after finding that five of the first six dealers I called had Volts in inventory available for immediate sale. Two of the five dealers even had two each in stock. I can now safely assume that GM is, once again, not being entirely honest with its facts. The demand for the Chevy Volt is not as strong as GM would have us believe.” See here for more detail.
Nissan has announced that they are going to increase the price of the 2012 Leaf from the current suggested price of $33,630 to $36,050. I understand that the 2012 Leaf will come with a quick charge port that will allow battery charging in 30 minutes. That should be a decided improvement, but I have often wondered how long the lines would be today, at the gasoline stations, if a fill up required 30 minutes. See here for more detail
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Climate Change Sanity 