Chevrolet Bolt EV Debuts With 579 Sales In December, But Volt Steals The Show With Record 3,691 Deliveries

A new 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV hits the lot and immediately heads back out with a customer at Rydell Chevrolet in California (via Bro1999)

The time has finally arrived!

Two years after its debut at the 2015 North American International Auto Show (or Detroit Auto Show if you will), the Chevrolet Bolt EV arrived…on time and on budget, with the first deliveries of GM’s 238 mile EV happening on December 13th in the San Francisco Bay area (details).

For the month, 579 Chevrolet Bolts were moved in December.  A decent amount considered the limited selling time, but still a bit of the historical debut record – which was set in November by the Toyota Prius Prime, logging 781 sales.

But pulling itself out of the shadow of the Bolt EV and back into the limelight with a HUGE, record setting month was theChevrolet Volt.

For December, the “best selling” plug-in for America set a new personal best, selling 3,691 copies, which was up 75% from the 2,114 sold in December of 2015.

Once again..that is 3,691 copies.  That is a lot of extended range plug-ins to be sure.

In total, 24,739 Volts were sold for the full year (up 61% overall), eclipsing the model’s previous yearly best, set back in 2012 when 23,461 were sold.  The previous best monthly result for the Volt was 3,351 sold way back in August of 2013.

Hey remember me? I’m that drab-colored gray vehicle off to the side of the Bolt EV, that has only sold like ~110,000 copies in the US so far and an astounding 3,691 in December!

InsideEVs reader Brian’s Bolt EV (Bro1999) getting prepped for delivery. (One can also follow his adventure son his Bolt EV blog here)

Normally during sales reports we would update the inventory situation, but as one might expect on the Bolt EV, almost all new stock is either spoken for upon arrival or shortly thereafter; although we do note at time of press that a couple California dealers do have some unallocated units…so if you want one bad enough (and right now), make some phone calls.

Not in California or Oregon and looking for a Chevy Bolt EV?  Here is GM’s roll-out schedule:

• EVs are currently in transit to California and Oregon
• a number of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States including New York, Massachusetts and Virginia will see first deliveries this winter (late January/February)
• Bolt EVs arrive at dealerships in additional major metro markets across the US throughout the first half of 2017
• nationwide at all certified dealers mid-2017

Also of interest in the “random quirky fact” category, a few remaining Cadillac ELRs (3) and Chevrolet Spark EVs (17) were sold out of remaining inventory (both plug-ins are now discontinued), making December the first month GM has sold 4 different models of electric vehicles…only the 3rd OEM to be able to boast such a feat.