IEVS: Plug-In Electric Cars Sales In U.S. Surpass 1 Million

Thanks to nearly 45,000 plug-in cars sold in September, cumulative sales of all plug-in models reached one million units. For mainstream consumers, electrification began in December 2010, when the first Nissan LEAFs and Chevrolet Volts were delivered – we tracked those numbers with passion every month!

Technically, our tally of mainstream models indicates almost 999,500 (since December 2010 through the end of September 2018), but first – it’s partially estimated (the error is within 1 million) and secondly – there is are less than a few thousand road-legal plug-ins outside of our mainstream tracking (like the Tesla Roadster) that have been sold (since 2008).

In other words, we are sure that in the last days of September or first few days of October, the U.S. crossed 1 million plug-in electric cars! The government’s goal was to achieve 1 million by the end of 2015. Well, we did it by 2018.

The most popular brands that together represents 70% of sales were:

Tesla – 273,773 (Model S + Model X + Model 3, without Roadster)
General Motors – 193,430 (Chevrolet Volt, Bolt EV, Spark EV plus Cadillac ELR & CT6 PHV)
Nissan – 125,513 (LEAF)
Ford – 110,130 (Fusion Energi, C-Max Energi, Focus Electric)

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DarthPuppy said:

IIRC, doesn't the tapering of the incentive have a delay feature - i.e., the drop in the tax credit happens in calendar 2019 if the 2018 GM sales take the units to over 200k? Otherwise, you have to figure out which person who bought in 2018 bought unit 199,999- and gets the credit while those who bought unit 200,001+ don't get the credit.

So I'd be surprised if GM dropped the price by a corresponding amount until 2019.

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DarthPuppy said:

Thanks for that clarification. I'm glad it is a tapering by quarter.

So Tesla has triggered that threshold already. Are Tesla sales now only getting 1/2 credit? Or is that about to happen?

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