In September, Chevrolet delivered 2,961 units of its Volt plug-in extended-range hybrid. It was an all-time high, and it followed up from the 2,851 vehicles sold in October.
Then came November: one way to look at it is that Volt sales rose by 33 percent compared to the same month in 2011. That’s small consolation, though, for GM when total sales were just 1,519 cars – that’s nearly half the number of the preceding months.
Chevrolet U.S. vice president of sales and service Don Johnson explained that this was due to an “inventory issue”, especially in California, caused by a number of factors and not because of lack of demand.
“Dealers are just clamoring for more”, he said for the Californian market, which accounts for around 34 percent of total Volt sales and until recently, had an eight-day supply that couldn’t keep up with demand, hence the plummeting sales.
Johnson told the Detroit News that GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, where the Volt is built, is being retooled for production of the 2014 Impala and this has necessitated halting production for some time. This fact, along with “more robust” than expected sales in the previous two months, resulted in a depleted inventory for November.
Currently, Volt inventory stands at 23 days for California and around 60 days for the rest of the U.S., which Johnson says is “ideal”. In the first 11 months of the year, Chevrolet has delivered 20,828 Volts.
As The Detroit News points out, it’s difficult to judge the effect expiring sales incentives might have had on the Volt’s falling sales. Without those incentives, the Volt’s sticker price is US$39,145 – steeper than that of the all-electric Nissan Leaf (US$35,200), and both Ford’s C-MAX Energi and Toyota’s Prius plug-in hybrids that cost US$32,950 and US$32,000 respectively.
That’s, of course, without government incentives, which start at US$2,500 plus US$417 for each kilowatt-hour of battery capacity over 4 kwh, while the portion of the credit determined by battery capacity cannot exceed US$5,000.
Therefore, the Volt and the Leaf are eligible for the maximum of US$7,500, while the C-MAX Energi qualifies for US$3,750 and the Prius plug-in for US$2,500 in tax credits.
By Andrew Tsaousis
Story References: Detroit News
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