Chevrolet Volt Sales In February Continue To Feel The Impact Of Upcoming Next Gen Car

The moment General Motors rolled out the second generation, 2016 Chevrolet Volt (details) at the NAIAS in Detroit in January, you could feel the wind being let out of current Chevy’s sales (pun intended).

GM-Sourced Articles On Current Volt Talking About The Improvements They Influenced In The 2016 Model Over The Current Gen Isn’t Helping Sales Today

With limited production, few incentives, and the full force of next generation hotness on display, just 542 copies of the original edition were sold in January – dropping the Volt to the 4th position for EV sales in America for the first time.

That malaise continued into February, although the overall number rebounded a little, as 693 were sold, off 48% from 2014 when 1,210 were moved.

For the year 1,235 Volts have sold versus 2,218 a year ago.  Off 42%.

And while some special interests groups with a point to prove will surely highlight current Volt sales  as an indicator of what the current public demand is for the product, we know better.

The fact is, the 2015 model year Volt is just playing out the string, waiting on the summer and the arrival of the 2016 car.  That being said, we still have a job to do.

But if one is looking for some highlights in February for the plug-in Chevy, all is not lost.

Despite General Motors shuttering the Volt’s Hamtramck production facility for a week this month, the company has seemingly decided they do need to produce more inventory of the current car, and national stocks of this year’s model grew by around 40% in the month, up to about 3,000 2015 MY units.  The first sizeable gain pretty much since the plant was idled for 2 months last fall in preparation of new models.

How many more 2015 Volts will GM spit out before they draw the curtain on production for good, and are they producing them with the intention of selling a quantity at a reduced rate to take advantage of the profit usually found at the end of a platform’s life?  We won’t know for sure for a couple more weeks.

What Is Up With The 2016 Cadillac ELR?

In other related plug-in news this month at GM:

• GM North America President Batey had nothing but good things to say about the Volt recently, and confirmed that the Spark EV will remain in the Chevy lineup into MY 2016 (details)
• In February GM confirmed production of the 200 mile, 2017 Chevrolet Bolt in Michigan
• We learned the 2016 Volt interior was actually completed in 2013, which pretty much means that the Bolt is already in production lockdown at this point  itself
• The 2016 Cadillac ELR with “enhanced performance” which was originally scheduled to debut at the LA Auto Show in November (it was pulled at the last minute), was re-scheduled to appear next week at the Geneva show…now it has been pulled again. What’s up with that? 

Separately, the Cadillac ELR continue to outperform last years results, with a respectable 127 moved in February, almost 120%better than a year ago when 58 were moved.  Also, the Chevrolet Spark EV had a pretty decent month, selling 119 copies, 67% better than a year ago.