As I just wrote in my overall US hybrid and electric car sales monthly wrap-up, August and September 2013 were funky months on the automobile industry calendar. Basically, because the last day of the calendar is actually the first weekday of the actual monthly calendar (you know, the one everyone else uses), Labor Day fell in “August” this year in the automobile world. That has thrown auto sales bloggers for a loop or two. But I think things are still quite clear if you step back two feet.
Toyota, GM, & Honda saw their hybrid and electric car sales drop in September 2013 compared to September 2012… largely due to this calendar fiasco. Only Ford, Nissan, and Tesla were spared from the major hybrid and electric car manufacturers (more on that here).
However, if you look at sales for the year to date, you get a more accurate picture of how these companies’ hybrid and electric car sales are going.
For 2013 through the end of September, GM’s hybrid and electric car sales are down 9.3% (38,498 vs 42,446 sales), as I noted in the summary post linked above. But why? Well, the Nissan Leaf’s price was cut $6,400 earlier this year (thanks to manufacturing moving to the US). That has no doubt taken away some of GM’s potential sales. However, perhaps even more importantly, Ford now has several plug-in hybrid and conventional hybrid cars on the market that have been selling very well. That likely ate up even more of GM’s potential Chevy Volt sales.
It’s a similar story for Honda, which has seen it’s Honda Civic Hybrid and Honda Insight lose sales in 2013 compared to 2012. Overall, Honda’s hybrid and electric cars are down 5.5% (13,929 vs 14,739 sales).
And it’s a similar story for Toyota, which has seen some of its Toyota Prius models and its Toyota Highlander Hybrid lose sales in 2013. However, overall, Toyota is actually up 9.55% (271,538 vs 247,878 sales) in 2013 US hybrid and electric vehicle sales.
For more, also see: