Toyota Prius Prime Tops May EV Sales Charts In US

EV sales in the US continued their strong growth in May. Topping the charts was the Toyota Prius Prime. Despite critically short supply, Toyota still managed to move 1,908 examples of its latest plug-in hybrid, giving it the US sales lead over the Tesla Model S, the Chevy Volt, and the Chevy Bolt. (Note: Model S and Model X sales are estimated. Tesla does not announce monthly sales totals and does not break out sales by nation.)

The Chevy Volt is leading the US sales race for the year versus the Tesla Model S, 9187 to 8645. Of course, when you combine Model S and Model X sales, Tesla is the clear overall winner. And for those who want to debate whether a plug-in hybrid should really be considered when reporting EV sales, we have had this conversation before and the answer is yes, they should be. Someday, plug-in sales will wane just as hybrid sales have done, but for the next decade or so, they will continue to be an important part of the transition away from traditional fossil fuel burning cars.

Ford has yet to announce is May sales numbers, but there are some interesting things to note in the chart. Chrysler sold 205 of its Pacifca Hybrid minivans in its first full month on sale. That’s a pretty good start for this brand new vehicle and it will be interesting to track its sales numbers over time.

The lowly Fiat 500e posted 665 sales. Since the vast majority of those are in California, it is interesting that the BMW i3, which is sold nationwide, only managed a dismal 18 sales. The Nissan LEAF continues to pick up sales, even as customers await the arrival of the second generation car later this year. The LEAF has established a reputation for being comfortable and reliable, if a bit odd in the styling department.

Overall, EV sales were up 25% over May last year and are up 40% through the first five months of 2917. Are the numbers still small compared to the total new car market? Yes, they are. But if this pace continues, the tipping point between conventional cars and those with plugs is getting closer every month.

Source and chart: Inside EVs

Toyota Prius Prime Outsells Tesla Model S and Model X in January

First, a disclaimer. Tesla steadfastly refuses to provide monthly sales figures or to break out sales by region, so the information presented below is speculative. That being said, the folks at Inside EVs have been tracking EV and plug-in hybrid sales for many years and have gained a well deserved reputation for being about as accurate and authoritative as any people in the business. Their projections and predictions about Tesla sales usually correspond closely with the actual numbers that come from Tesla at the end of each quarter.

That being said, let’s move on to January sales figures as compiled by Inside EVs. Keep in mind that we are talking about US sales only in this discussion. They report the Chevy Volt as being the sales leader for the first month of the year, followed closely by the newly introduced Prius Prime plug-in hybrid. The Volt racked up 1,611 sales for the month; the Prius Prime 1,366. Not bad for a new model that is not available in all sections of the country yet as Toyota ramps up production of the new car.

The new-to-market Chevy Bolt scored impressive sales for a brand new car with 1,162 units sold. Then come the Tesla twins — Model S sales are estimated at 900 and Model X numbers set at 750. The Nissan LEAF, which hasn’t changed much this decade, split the two Teslas with 772 sales.

Some of you will want to look at the combined company totals. Chevrolet can brag its two electric cars sold a total of 2,773 cars. Tesla is well behind at 1,650. Ford’s two EVs, the Fusion Energi and C-Max Energi, combined for a total of 1,079 sales. After that, the sales numbers fall into the hundreds rather than thousands, with several models recording less than 100 US sales for the month.

What conclusions can be drawn from the numbers? January sales are typically weak while December numbers are strong. That’s due to the vagaries of the federal tax credit for EVs. People who buy in December get to claim their credit 15 weeks later when tax time rolls around. People who buy in January have to wait 15 months to claim their reward. Nevertheless, EV sales in January were up a healthy 70% over the same month last year — a sign that the electric car market is moving in the right direction.

If that sort of sales growth were to continue for the entire year, Inside EVs predicts total US EV sales for 2017 could approach 270,000 or more. One unknown in the mix is whether the new Chrysler Pacific Hybrid minivan will sell well. All its specifications suggest it should be a hit, since it is considerably more efficient than any other minivan on the market without costing a lot more than the conventional Pacifica, but we will have to wait and see how the market responds.

Unless Donald Trump figures out how to mandate coal fired steam cars, the outlook for EV sales in America in 2017 looks bright. The cloud on the horizon is lower Tesla sales this year in January than in the same month last year. That is a trend that will bear close watching as the year moves forward.

Source: Inside EVs

Toyota changes course, offers to share hybrid technology with rivals

2016 Toyota Prius, Catskill Mountains, NY, Dec 2015

Over the past six months, Toyota has made some remarkable decisions about its present and future car technologies.

After years of staunch opposition to battery-electric vehicles, it committed to launching one by 2020.

Now, the company has decided to offer its proprietary hybrid technology in volume to other automakers.

That decision, announced two weeks ago as part of a wider announcement of powertrain strategies by the company, marks a clear change of course.

Since 1997, when the company launched the first Prius hybrid model in Japan, it has fiercely guarded its hybrid-electric technology.

It has signed a few licensing deals, among them to Nissan for the 2007-2011 Altima Hybrid sold in the U.S. and to Mazda for a hybrid Mazda 3 compact sold only in Japan.

2011 Nissan Altima Hybrid

But those deals were limited and fairly low-volume.

Now, as described last week in an article by Reuters, Toyota plans to work with its suppliers at a much earlier stage to standardize components, making it easier for future generations of its hybrid technology to be used by other automakers.

Selling its signature hybrid system to other makers will not only give Toyota greater economies of scale, but likely prolong the life of that technology.

Toyota launched its fourth generation of the Prius last year, and while the car is considerably better to drive and more fuel-efficient than past versions, its sales in the U.S.—a major market—have lagged.

That is likely due to a combination of several factors, including continued cheap gasoline, the ongoing shift in buyer preferences from passenger cars to utility vehicles of all sizes, and perhaps the extreme styling of the latest Prius.

The company also made an unexpected choice in the 2017 Prius Prime, its latest plug-in hybrid Prius: it defaults the car to run solely in electric mode if the battery has charge remaining, unlike most other plug-in hybrids except the Chevy Volt.

2017 Toyota Prius Prime and 2017 Chevrolet Volt with Green Car Reports editor John Voelcker

That may indicate an increasing understanding of the benefits of all-electric propulsion by the company whose green-car technologies previously stretched from hybrids and plug-in hybrids to hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, while jumping over battery-electric cars.

The hybrid-sharing strategy is a long-term one, and will involve changes to parts specifications and technical standards that will be largely invisible to buyers.

"Toyota suppliers produce a lot of technology which can only be used by Toyota," the president of the company's powertrain unit, Toshiyuki Mizushima, said to reporters, as quoted by Reuters.

"We want to change that to a system where we develop technology with our suppliers at an earlier stage," so that non-Toyota customers can have buy those components and systems directly from suppliers.

But whether the hybrid technology it hopes to sell to other makers carries the company's name or not—"Toyota Inside," anyone?—it will lower the cost for all users.

It may also reflect a realization that almost 20 years after launching hybrids, Toyota is the sole global automakers dedicated to propagating the technology across all its product lines.

2001 Toyota Prius Sedan

As much simpler battery-electric vehicles slowly gain market momentum, they are likely to surpass the continuing low penetration of hybrids in the overall global market.

Which suggests that, just possibly, Toyota's two-decade bet on hybrid technology to offset its continuing sales of otherwise not notably fuel-efficient cars and trucks may not be paying off as it anticipated.

Either way, expect to see more hybrids with Toyota technology inside even as that company scrambles to catch up with General Motors, Tesla, and other unlikely competitors in electric cars it didn't envision back in 1997.