Chevy Volts: With the plant on hiatus, the waiting list is growing
The auto press loves to draw conclusions from monthly sales figures. It’s the big horse race that everyone wants to handicap. But sometimes numbers are just numbers, and they don’t say much at all about the state of the industry. Electric and hybrid sales fell precipitously in June, but does that mean the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf will take their place, alongside the Edsel, as among the industry’s biggest flops? Nah.
Overall, what are described as “advanced powertrain” vehicle sales fell 30 percent last month from the same period last year, and 17 percent from May. Total sales of 14,762 amounted to just 1.4 percent of the industry, down from 2.2 percent at this time last year. Hybrid sales dropped below 15,000, or about where they were in 2006.
Who’s to blame?
But don’t blame the Volt and Leaf for these numbers, because both were actually up in June. Nissan saw a 50 percent jump, and GM 17 percent. There are really good reasons for this precipitous fall, and the culprits are conventional hybrids, not the new-technology vehicles.
The biggest loser was actually the bestselling Toyota Prius, which was down a huge 61 percent from the same month last year — and that’s wholly because of delivery problems relating to Japan’s earthquake and tsunami last March. As the Prius goes, so go hybrid sales — because the Prius accounts for more than a million of the two million hybrids sold in the U.S. so far. As Edmunds.com points out, the twin natural disasters
cost Toyota one full month of Prius production, followed by one month of production that was at just 30 percent of normal, and a second month at 50 percent.
Current Prius inventory is at a tenth of what it was last year at this time. Another factor is that many consumers are waiting for the new Prius V, a station wagon version with 58 percent more cargo capacity, which won’t hit showrooms until the fall. Honda has the same delivery constraints as Toyota, and it also saw big drops in Insight and Civic hybrid sales.
These cars aren’t… normal
The Volt and Leaf are often measured against each other, but that’s misleading. Both are still in notoriously short supply, and they’re not being sold like normal cars, so monthly sales figures are largely meaningless. And there’s still a whole lotta price gouging going on. Can you walk into a showroom and drive away with either car? No, and for at least the next six months both carmakers will be merely working their way through advance orders. Supply is still extremely constrained, and for the Leaf it’s largely because of lingering earthquake after-effects.
There’s a tendency to look at the slight fall in gas prices as a major factor, but I doubt it, because the average national price is only down 35 cents a gallon from early May. I can’t imagine people looking at $3.55 on a gas station sign and thinking the coast was clear to buy SUVs and pickups again. Another skeptic is Sam Jaffe, an analyst at IDC Energy Insights:
Gas prices shouldn’t have that much of a monthly impact on hybrid and EV sales — you’d need a much bigger price disparity.
Christopher Hopson of IHS Automotive also says gas prices aren’t to blame:
Slight movements in gasoline prices usually don’t move things drastically, quick spikes and certain trigger points ($3 or $4 per gallon) have been shown to change consumer sentiment, neither of which we saw last month.
The Volt is on hiatus
Jaffe also points out another big factor here. Volt sales were up, but still not what they could have been. The Michigan factory is currently on a four-week shutdown as the carmaker retools to triple production. That’s aggravating the short-term supply problem. As the Detroit Bureau points out, “Already in tight supply, the number of Volts available for delivery to retail customers will be further restricted before production resumes.” It won’t be until the end of the year before the Volt is available nationwide.
GM isn’t planning for low demand — it’s ramping up for 60,000 annual capacity, and expects to deliver 45,000 cars next year.
All in all, it’s not time to write obits for electric and hybrid cars. Instead, we should be celebrating how well they’re doing with all the factors weighing against them.
Related:
- Price Gouging is Rampant on the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf
- Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf: Where the Triple-Digit Fuel Economy Came From
Photo: Flickr/Mariordo59
