USA November 2015

Now, where is that Nissan Leaf?

Recovery Edition

For the first time since June, numbers ended above the 10.000 units, with sales 8% above last year result, but it will be hard to turn numbers into the black this year, as we would need that December would need to have more than 18.000 registrations to surpass last result. Impossible? No. Difficult to achieve? Yes...

Tesla has delivered a positive month, around 3.000 units (Year best and up 146% YoY), while the  Second Generation Chevrolet Volt has seen another positive result, with 1.980 units, although still far from the 2.961 units recorded in October 2012.

As for the other member of the four-digit club, the Nissan Leaf, the 1.054 units represented its worst performance in 33(!) months, once again, consumers waiting for the 30kWh version are the reason for this sales dive.

Looking at the rest of the ranking, no big surprises in the top spots, aside from a year best from the Ford Fusion Energi (944 units) and another personal best for the Porsche Cayenne Plug-In, probably spiked by...

...The brilliant arrival of the BMW X5 Plug-In, the luxury SUV sold 167 units, thus beating in November the class-leader Porsche Cayenne Plug-In, all while climbing one position to #19.

There was a new arrival last month, with Hyundai launching its first plug-in car ever, the Sonata, and starting with 15 units. Compliance vehicle or a real contender for the Ford Fusion Energi? 2016 should answer that.

In the manufacturers ranking, the leader Tesla (20%, up 1%) distanced itself a bit further from the Second Placed Ford (18%), and the #3 Nissan (16%) now has Chevrolet (15%) running closer every day.

Pl	USA	Nov.	YTD	%
1	Tesla Model S e)	2.950	20.168	20
2	Nissan Leaf	1.054	15.922	16
3	Chevrolet Volt (1)	1.980	13.279	13
4	BMW i3	723	9.602	9
5	Ford Fusion Energi	944	8.692	9
6	Ford C-Max Energi	639	7.696	8
7	Fiat 500e	390	5.929	6
8	Toyota Prius Plug-In	44	4.169	4
9	Volkswagen e-Golf	472	3.623	4
10	Chevrolet Spark EV	166	2.477	2
11	Mercedes B-Class ED	41	1.809	2
12 13 14 15	BMW i8 Ford Focus Electric Smart Fortwo ED Porsche Cayenne Plug-In	118 93 178 121	1.609 1.486 1.208 1.019	2 1 1 1
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 26 28 29	Kia Soul EV Cadillac ELR P. Panamera Plug-In BMW X5 40e Plug-In Porsche 918 Mitsubishi I-Miev Mercedes S550e Honda Accord Plug-In Bolloré Blue Car Toyota RAV4 EV Tesla Model X Hyundai Sonata Plug-In Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV Honda Fit EV	83 67 33 167 2 4 21 1 5 15 7	919 889 391 362 203 106 83 63 50 17 15 15 12 2	1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  0 0
	TOTAL	10.318	101.755	100

e) Estimate

(1) - First and Second generations combined.

Source: insideevs.com; greencarreports.com; Good Car Bad Car

Tesla vs The Others

As Elon Musk pointed out, the real competition of Tesla aren't other EV's, but the ICE best selling models, so let's look how the Model S stands in its own domestic market (1): 

Pl	Model	Nov.
1	Mercedes E-Class	4.751
2	BMW 5-Series	4.646
3	Tesla Model S	2.950
4	Lexus GS	2.174
5	Audi A6	1.582

  
This month, the Model S stayed firm in Third, behind from the leaders Mercedes E-Class and BMW 5-Series, but ahead of the Audi A6, or the Lexus GS.

(1) - Unlike markets across the pond, the full-size car market in the US is much more diversified, with Chevy Impalas, Malibu's, Chrysler 300, Dodge Chargers, etc, all theoretical adversaries to the Model S, but Tesla's direct competition isn't there, so the Model S is only compared with cars with similar price and concept.