I've shortened the actual headline, "Electric Cars Sell Faster Than Hybrids Did At Same Point", but it's the same point: Check out this graph:
Above is a graph comparing the relative sales volumes of hybrids (starting in 2000) to those of plug-in electric cars (starting in 2011).
It comes from the U.S. Department of Energy, which tweeted the image last Friday.
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The 100,000th plug-in electric car sold in the U.S. was delivered sometime during May.
As we note regularly on this site, in 2011, a total of 17,500 plug-in electric cars were sold in the U.S.
Then, last year, the sales total tripled to about 53,000. And this year, they're on track to double again--roughly--to more than 100,000 plug-in cars delivered.
Again:
2011: 17,500
2012: 53,000
2013: 100,000 (est.)
Now, I realize that there were about 14.5 million light vehicles (cars/trucks) sold in the U.S. in 2012, so even 100,000 = less than 1% of the total...but things are moving in the right direction.
And as for my personal fave-rave, the Chevy Volt, after a bit of trouble earlier this year, they're back in the game again:
Strong June sales push Chevy Volt ahead of Nissan Leaf for first time since February"
The flash report for monthly sales for the two best-selling plug-in vehicles* is here, and it was a big turnaround month for the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid. Chevy's halo car sold no more than 1,626 units in any month this year, so June's sales of 2,698 Volts must be a pleasant surprise for the General. It was also the best June sales month ever for the Volt and a 53.3 percent increase over 2012, making it the first time since February that the Volt outsold the Leaf, for those of you keeping a running tally on the two EVs.
The Leaf is also doing very well; the Leaf and Volt are actually neck-and-neck for the first half of the year, having sold just shy of 10,000 units apiece.
Update: As mndan noted in the comments, the news is even better, as sales of Tesla vehicles aren't even included for some reason...but they appear to be on track to sell almost 20,000 "S" models this year!
What’s the best-selling high-end luxury car in the US? If you guess the big BMW, Lexus or Mercedes- Benz sedan, you’d be close to correct. But the top seller actually appears to be the Tesla Model S electric car, with 4,750 sales in the US for the first quarter of 2013, more than half again as much as the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. That’s a stunning achievement for a car company founded in 2003.
Assuming that pace holds steady, that'd be 19,000 Model S's for 2013!
Update x2: OK, sorry about the confusion, but as noted by Assaf in the comments, it looks like Tesla sales ARE included in the graph above after all. Here's the actual breakdown, by both month and manufacturer, of the monthly sales through the end of June.
Even more cool: Note that in 2011, there were only 3 models effectively available in the U.S. (Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi i-MiEV).
In 2012, there were 9 models available (Ford, Honda and Toyata jumped into the game, plus they started counting Tesla). In 2013, we're up to 13 models, and so on.