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Electric car sales: Nissan Leaf up, Chevy Volt down

Nissan sold 1,864 Leaf electric cars, a record for July, while Chevy Volt saw its sales go down from one year prior.

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Gary Cameron/Reuters/File
A 2013 all-electric Nissan Leaf is displayed at the Washington Auto Show earlier this year. The 2014 Nissan Leaf has slightly better mileage, an updated EV-IT system, and a backup camera system for every grade.
  • By John Voelcker Contributor

Sales of plug-in electric cars continued at a relatively steady pace in July, keeping the sector on track for something near 100,000 sales by the end of the year.

While last month's half-year total wasn't quite enough to double the 2012 total of 53,000 electric cars, sales are now running at an average of more than 7,000 a month--with variations in each car from month to month.

Nissan sold 1,864 Leaf battery-electric cars--a record for July sales, though not an all-time monthly high.

That brings Leaf sales for the first seven months of 2013 to 11,703, which is more Leafs than the company sold in the U.S. during all of 2011 or 2012.

Sales of the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, on the other hand, totaled 1,788 in July, fewer than the 1,849 sold in July of 2012.

Total Volt sales are 11,643 in the first seven months of the year, versus 10,666 at the same time last year.

We will update this story throughout the day as additional sales figures come in.

This month will see the first sales of the Fiat 500e compliance car in California, although Fiat has not committed to breaking out its sales--so the small numbers of the well-reviewed electric car may remain unknown.

The only other carmaker that refuses to report monthly sales of its plug-in cars is Tesla.

We'll find out how many Model S electric luxury sport sedans the company sold from April through June when Tesla reports its second-quarter financial results later this month.

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