Ford EV Sales Are Posted -- January 6, 2016; EV Buyers Are Paying Up For Luxury

Link here. The original December car sales blog was posted here.

It appears folks are "paying up" for luxury when buying EVs. Compare two numbers:

• the jump in sales month-over-month for BMW, December-over-November, 2015
• the numbers for the first half of the year with the numbers for the second half of the year for the Chevy Volt

I'm not impressed with Tesla, for any number of reasons. For one thing, these are "deliveries," not sales, as far as I know. I could be wrong on that -- but the "rounded numbers" certainly support the feeling that these are "fed" numbers and not actual sales. For example, the Nissan Leaf reports 17,269 EVs for the year, a pretty exact number. Meanwhile, Tesla reports 25,700 vehicles.

EV buyers are "paying up" for luxury:

• Note Chevrolet Volt: a huge increase in sales in December compared to January, but over the most recent three months, fairly flat.
• On the other hand, BMW sales surged in December, month-over-month, and it was really evident in the high end BMW i8, from 118 in November, to 656 in December. Lots of Christmas gifts. 
• Cadillac EV sales more than double (not in graph above; see link to source).
• Ford was the last to post their EV sales for December. Very, very nice numbers, but essentially flat over the year. Yes, there is an increase, but for the 30-second sound bit, "about flat."
• One last thought: the 13,000 BMW's reported were actually "sold," compared to the much more talked-about Tesla at 25,000 which were "delivered."