In Gear offers a fresh look at the world of cars – its technology, economics, and future – through the eyes of Monitor staffers and other automobile writers from around the world.
The 2012 Prius hybrid plug-in gets the equivalent of 95 miles per gallon. In April, it beat out the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf for the most sales of an electric car. (Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A./PRNewsFoto/File)
Electric-car sales fall in April
Sales of plug-in electric cars fell last month, with especially low sales of the Nissan Leaf, following their strong showing in March.
Last month, just 370 Nissan Leaf battery-electric cars were sold, down from 579 in March, and bringing this year's Leaf sales to only 2,103 in the first four months. Last month's Leaf sales were the lowest monthly number in more than a year.
Nissan has sold 11,796 Leafs in total since the car went on sale in December 2010. Nissan has said it will sell 20,000 Leafs in the U.S. this year, but that will require it to sell 2,500 each month from now through December.
GM had a decent but not spectacular month, with Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car sales falling back from last month's 2,289 but staying in four figures. The company sold 1,462 Volts in April, bringing total 2012 sales to 5,377.
Chevy has sold a total of 13,374 Volts since its sales, too, began in December 2010. The total so far in 2012, however, would indicate that it will sell between 15,000 and 20,000 Volts in the U.S. this year unless sales improve over the summer.
But the big winner in April was the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid, which logged 1,654 sales in just its third month on the market. Its April sales beat the Volt by 192 units, and were more than four times the month's sales of Leafs.
Toyota has now sold 2,552 plug-in Priuses since late February.
Among those top three models, the sales total for April was 3,486 plug-ins--versus 3,759. If all three models stay on pace, that means that U.S. plug-in sales might go as high as 40,000 for the year, versus about 17,000 last year.
In the second tier of electric-car makers, April sales of the Mitsubishi i minicar were 79--the best monthly number yet, bringing the year's total to 215 (plus another 80 late last year).
At the time this article was published, Ford had not responded to our query on April sales of its Focus Electric hatchback. The company sold 12 of the cars in December and January combined, but none in February or March.
As always, both Fisker Automotive and Coda Automotive declined to comment on sales of their plug-in vehicles.
We'll be curious to see whether larger media press those companies on this issue, or whether the world simply stops paying attention.
As always, and we wrote several weeks ago, electric car sales will rise--but it will be slow.
Still, with more than 27,000 plug-ins now running on U.S. roads, the progress is steady and the demand--if low--is definitely there.
In this March file photo, a Nissan Leaf tops off its battery in Central Point, Ore., at one of the charging stations along Interstate 5. Can all-electric cars enhance US security? (Jeff Barnard/AP/File)
My Nissan Leaf life: Why I bought a Nissan Leaf
– First installment in an occasional series
I've had a Nissan Leaf for two months now – and things have started to change.
I pass gas stations without thinking about them anymore. I've got new "attitude," scowling at Toyota Priuses for their lack of gas-saving zeal. On Saturdays, when we do most of our driving, my wife and I sometimes calculate whether we can do all our errands on the Leaf's 100-mile battery without finding a public charging station.
I never thought we would own an all-electric car. But the idea began to dawn over a kitchen table discussion last fall about a replacement for our 14-year-old Honda Accord.
Honestly, if we had not just refinanced the house, we might have ended up with a Honda Fit – not a Nissan Leaf. But we decided to use some of the housing-cost savings from the re-fi on new transportation. Fiscal discipline, we decided, would take a back seat this time to all-electric driving for one key reason: We won't have to fill up ever again (except when we use the minivan for long trips).
To be sure, the Leaf will save us $50 per fill-up, maybe $1,000 a year on fuel. But the Leaf lease payments will swallow those savings – unless gas prices go up maybe to $5 a gallon. No, the real reason Laura and I took possession of an "ocean blue" Leaf on an icy winter day in mid-February was 9/11.
After that terrible day, many people began asking: What can I do in my personal life to make sure this never happens again?
Not a lot, really, I thought at that time. But lately my view has changed. One thing is that it might help to refuse to give "people who hate us" a lot of money for their oil. Simplistic? Yes. Am I going to try it? Yes.
Another post-9/11 change: In reporting for the Monitor on energy and environment, I discovered Felix Kramer and a couple of his buddies working out of a California garage, trying to curb US oil use by turning a standard Prius hybrid into a cutting edge plug-in hybrid. It ran mostly on electricity and got the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon.
When Toyota didn't seem interested, Felix and his pals converted a lot more of them, hoping to shame Toyota and Detroit automakers into building production plug-in hybrids. Amazingly, they succeeded.
Last year, the Chevrolet Volt rolled into showrooms. It goes 40 miles on a charge before reverting to a gasoline engine for distance driving. Toyota finally began selling a plug-in hybrid Prius that goes 12 to 15 miles on a charge first, then a gas engine. Ford is deploying an all-electric Focus and a plug-in hybrid SUV. The list goes on – 11 automakers and a dozen new models this year – the year of the electric car.
Since most US oil goes to power automotive transportation – and two-thirds of all Americans drive less than 40 miles a day – a car like the Chevy Volt would let Americans duck the pump and substitute domestic fuel (electricity) for nearly all their driving needs. If enough people drove one, energy-security hawks like former CIA director James Woolsey and a bevy of former generals say it would greatly enhance US energy security.
Of course, you could get really radical and get an all-electric vehicle like the Nissan Leaf. That might save even more gasoline, albeit by living inside a 50-mile radius. This is the first in a series of blogs about what it means to live within that radius, about the often not-very-intuitive things that emerge as you step away from a gas-powered world, and what it's like to electrify your daily ride.
Welcome to my Nissan Leaf life.
In this file photo, a phone is held in a car in Brunswick, Maine. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is proposing a federal ban on cellphone use by drivers, but the legal complexities of getting the law passed could prove overwhelming. (Pat Wellenbach/AP/File)
Should US ban cellphone use by drivers?
For U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, putting an end to distracted driving has become a top-level priority. By now, we've all become used to hearing him talk about it -- particularly, the link between cell phones and distracted driving.
But late last week, LaHood did something new. At a summit on distracted driving in San Antonio, Texas, LaHood called for a federal ban on mobile phone use by drivers.
So far, most of LaHood's efforts have centered on awareness campaigns, which have often drawn on the power of A-list stars like Oprah Winfrey. He's also been hard at work with automakers (and aftermarket manufacturers) to set new standards on telematics systems.
But calling for a ban on mobile phone use at the national level? Well, that's a horse of a different color.
LaHood didn't set out specifics for the proposed ban, like whether it might include hands-free as well as hand-held devices. (That's a valid question, since some studies show that the two are equally distracting, though LaHood denies it.)
We're guessing that LaHood's wariness of going into legal details stems from the fact that doing so would put him in some very deep water -- water that's typically patrolled by individual states.
Can it happen?
LaHood and the DOT have done a lot of very commendable work on the topic of distracted driving. His outreach to automakers has been especially forward-thinking. After all, mobile phones sit increasingly at the center of our cars' infotainment and communications hubs. Looking ahead to find new, simpler ways of employing those mobile phones lays the groundwork for a safer tomorrow.
However, a federal ban on mobile phone use would be unusual, if not unique.
Today, individual states typically control laws governing driver behavior. For example, they set their own speed limits, blood alcohol levels, and seat belt regulations. And in fact, most states --38, plus the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Virgin Islands -- have laws that restrict cell phone usage by drivers.
In LaHood's defense, those laws are pretty varied. Some limit the making and taking of calls, some focus solely on texting. Some prevent the driver from using hand-held devices, while in other states, that's a-okay. Some states set age limits on who can use mobile phones while driving and who can't. And in many states, whole professions (e.g. school bus drivers) are prevented from using mobile phones.
Given that crazy quilt, we agree that it would be nice to have a national standard on what is and isn't appropriate, so folks don't have to look up laws on their smartphones when crossing state lines.
But frankly, we don't see that happening. Not anytime soon, anyway.
For now, LaHood & Co. should focus their attention on what they've been doing. For example: if the phone really does become central to vehicle infotainment, limiting the ability of drivers to take calls while their phones are plugged into the center stack would help address (though not solve entirely) many of LaHood's concerns.
From where we sit, that's a safer bet for LaHood and the nation's drivers than trying to impinge on the touchy issue of state's rights.
In this 2009 file photo, an employee of the Daimler AG mounts the Mercedes star on the hood of a car of the Mercedes-Benz E-class on the production line in Sindelfingen, Germany. A new report suggests Mercedes could grab the No. 2 spot among luxury carmakers by 2015. (Thomas Kienzle/AP/File)
Mercedes-Benz poised to become No. 2 luxury automaker?
Audi has a long-standing goal of becoming the world’s number one luxury automaker, and for the past few years it looked like the four-ring brand was well on its way to achieving this.
Last year, Audi sold just over 1.3 million vehicles worldwide, beating rival Mercedes-Benz (1.26 million) and closing the gap on BMW (1.38 million sales). For Audi, that represented a 19.2-percent gain over the prior year, compared to 12.8-percent for BMW and a modest 8-percent for Mercedes Benz.
Now comes word from Bloomberg that Mercedes-Benz may overtake Audi for the number two position in 2015. Forecasts from the Center of Automotive Research at the University of Duisberg-Essen have BMW selling 1.76 million vehicles in 2015, followed by Mercedes Benz (1.68 million) and Audi (1.63 million).
How accurate any long-term forecasts are in the automotive industry is the subject of much debate, but Mercedes-Benz is clearly taking steps to combat sales gains by Audi. Over the next few years, Mercedes-Benz is launching a plethora of new global vehicles, primarily in the small car segment.
There’s the new A-Class, a new B-Class, the CLA four door coupe (smaller brother to the CLS 550) and even a new compact crossover called the GLA Class. Priced right, these models have the potential of boosting Mercedes-Benz’s sales above those of Audi in the coming years.
Of course Audi isn’t standing idly by, either. Expect to see the new Q3 crossover in the coming months, followed by a new compact crossover dubbed the Q2. Then there’s the new A3 wagon to consider, which will be followed by an all-new A3 sedan.
It may not be perfectly clear which company will take the sales lead in three years time, but this much is obvious: with so much new product to choose from, luxury car shoppers are the real winners.
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