GreenCarReports.com: Well, chalk up another first for Nissan: It sold 3,117 Leaf electric cars in the U.S. last month.
That's not only its best-ever one-month sales performance, but it's the first time any carmaker has sold more than 3,000 battery electric cars in a month in this country--ever. (August 2013 sales for the range-extended Chevy Volt were 3,531.)
The May result brings total year-to-date Leaf sales to 10,389, and increases the Leaf's U.S. sales lead among all plug-in cars for 2014.
Last month's figure also takes total Leaf sales in the U.S. above the 50,000 mark (52,511 to be precise), though the Leaf is still in second place for total sales since December 2010 to the Chevy Volt range-extended electric car.
Meanwhile, the Volt delivered 1,684 units last month, bringing its 2014 total to date to 6,838. That's only marginally up on the 1,607 Volts delivered in May a year ago.
A total of 61,390 Volts have been sold in the U.S. in the 42 months starting with the first delivery in December 2010, just three days after the first Leaf was delivered.
The Volt has been selling at roughly the same level for about two years, almost in an extended glide path to the anticipated start of production of an updated 2016 Volt a year or so from now.
New entrant from BMW
A new electric car joined the sales roster in May: BMW delivered 336 of its new and radical i3 battery-electric car in May. It's a seemingly strong start given that the first battery-electric model was delivered May 3, but range-extended models didn't start delivery until almost three weeks later.
The company didn't immediately specify how many of them were fitted with the optional REx range-extending two-cylinder engine
And as always, it's not known how many Tesla Model S electric luxury sedans were delivered last month, because Tesla refuses to report monthly sales figures.
We surmise that it delivered perhaps 1,200 cars in the U.S. as it continues to divert production to markets in Europe and China.
Plug-in hybrids
Beyond the big three--Leaf, Volt, and Model S--are three plug-in hybrid models that sell several hundred units a month.
The Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid sold a whopping 2,692 units in May. That's its best monthly total ever, and brings the 2014 total to 7,729--meaning it's sold in higher volumes this year than the Chevrolet Volt has.
Sales of Ford's two Energi plug-in hybrid models, the Fusion mid-size sedan and the C-Max compact hatchback, will be reported tomorrow.
Two lower-volume vehicles round out the category. May sales of the Honda Accord Plug-In Hybrid were 46, bringing the year's total to 152, and total sales since January 2013 to 678.
Deliveries for Porsche in May were 53 plug-in Panameras, for a year-to-date total of 370 (plus 45 more in December)--meaning the Porsche plug-in hybrid continues to outsell the Cadillac ELR by about 50 percent.
Low-volume and compliance cars
The last and largest group of plug-in electric models to record sales in May are the compliance carsand those whose sales volume is no more than compliance level.
The latter groups includes two electric minicars--the Smart Electric Drive and Mitsubishi i-MiEV--as well as the Ford Focus Electric and the Cadillac ELR range-extended electric luxury coupe.
Now that its 2014 i-MiEV electric minicar has finally gone on sale, Mitsubishi sold 35 of its electric minicar--the highest monthly number since last May and almost half of its year-to-date sales of 75. We expect next month's i-MiEV total to be higher yet.
GM reported that it delivered 52 Cadillac ELR coupes in May, bringing the total sold since December last year to 299.
The compliance cars are the Chevy Spark EV, the Fiat 500e (whose sales data Chysler refuses to supply), the Honda Fit EV, and the Toyota RAV4 EV.
The Chevrolet Spark EV logged its best month by far since it went on sale last June, with 182 sales in May--bringing the 2014 total to 369 and total deliveries to 908.
Honda Fit EV sales were 33, bringing the year's total to 183, and the total since July 2012 to 845.
