Published September 4, 2012
By Jeff Cobb
As promised by General Motors in advance, today it reported the Chevy Volt set another monthly sales record with 2,831 North American deliveries in August.
This compares to August 2011 when Volts were still rolling out and just 302 units were sold. Year-to-date, GM has reported 13,497 Volts delivered, compared to 3,172 delivered this time last year, meaning the Volt is up by 325.5 percent current year to date.
As GM also notes, August's record also represents a year-over-year increase of 837.4 percent compared to last August. Now, if it can just do another 800-percent increase some time in 2013 ...
Whether that comes to pass, the car nonetheless has been winning in the plug-in electric category in recent months, although we have yet to get all numbers in for this month.
Given Nissan's Leaf has been generally flagging, and its maker has yet to share what it found after examining allegedly heat-degraded Leafs in Arizona, and in July the Volt tripled its nearest plug-in competitor from Toyota, the Volt is poised to maybe do it again.
Further parsing the numbers, sales of 2,831 Volts last month exceeded the previous all-time high of 2,289 sold in March, and handily outpaced all other higher Volt sales months as well.
The Volt's highest sales have been this year, and as recently noted, numbers of Volts sold from the end of last year were: December: 1,529; January: 603, February: 1,023; March: 2,289; April: 1,429; May: 1,680, June: 1,760, July 1,849.
Volt Communications Representative Michelle Malcho said last week the car is doing particularly well in California, Michigan, Illinois and Florida, and across the country, its momentum seems to be picking up.
This has not stopped some media from issuing press releases suggesting a Volt death watch may be in order due to GM’s month-long closure of the Volt’s assembly plant scheduled Sept. 17-Oct. 12.
For its part, GM says nothing could be further from the truth, and this latest month in which the previous record was surpassed by 542 units – a nearly 24-percent increase – is a fairly good indicator the company means what it says.
Malcho also said GM has built ahead and does not expect Volt shortages while the Detroit-Hamtramck plant is closed this month into next.
