U.S. Electric Vehicle Sales In August Drop Below 2013 Levels

Despite frequent headlines touting electric vehicle improvements American shoppers are not buying the cars. Our national obsession with global climate change also does not seem to have made any impact on the buying habits of car shoppers in the U.S. The August sales numbers of a few insignificant models are still trickling in, but the Volt and Leaf official numbers are well below 2013 levels for August, and the estimates by Inside EVs* are that Tesla’s August sales are unchanged since 2013.

Two years ago in August of 2013 the U.S. electrified car market saw sales of about 11,273 vehicles. Included are cars like the all-electric Leaf and the Plug-in Prius. One year later, by August 2014 those monthly numbers had increased to about 12,172. For August 2015, the monthly total may not top 9,000 vehicles. The year to date electrified vehicle totals are behind 2014’s run rate. The past four months of 2015, May, June, July, and now August, are all well below last year’s monthly totals.

Nissan Leaf sales, in particular, have dropped off to about half of the monthly average from last year. The Leaf’s 1,393 units sold in August are well below 2014’s average month of sales for the Leaf, which was 2,516 cars. In fact, since the Leaf became a full production model in October of 2012 the Leaf’s sales rate has never been this low.

New models like Tesla’s overdue Model X and the new generation Volt coming in October may help overall EV sales increase. However, to do so, those new models will have to offset declines in other EV models.

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*Inside EVs Estimates