Will LEAF sales ever improve in the U.S.?
Sales of the Nissan LEAF continue to dwindle in the U.S. and likely will stay that way as the competition continues to heat up.
How low did it go?
To kick off 2019, Nissan sold just 717 LEAFs in January 2019 and in February 2019, Nissan sold just 654 LEAFs.
Some truly hard times had seemingly set in for the Nissan LEAF in regards to the U.S. However, it seemed like a rebound was occurring. In March, Nissan reported 1,314 LEAF sales in the U.S. But the momentum was lost again in April as Nissan reported only 951 LEAF sales in the U.S. However, May saw a slight uptick in sales with Nissan reporting 1,216 LEAFs sold.
July did not improve, but August marked a return into the thousands
We had expected sales to increase in June with more LEAF Plus availability. However, that was not the case as sales again declined. In June, Nissan sold just 1,156 LEAFs. In July, Nissan sold only 938 LEAFs in the U.S. It’s not a huge improvement, but sales were up in August with Nissan reporting 1,117 LEAF sales in the U.S.
But September did not follow the upward trend
We had high hope that the upward sales trend for the LEAF would continue into September, but that was not the case. Nissan reports that it sold 1,048 LEAFs in the U.S. in September. This decline is despite the fact that the LEAF Plus is really here and available now. To us, it’s now clear the LEAF is just not a favorite among U.S. buyers.
And October saw a big decline
In October 2019, Nissan sold only 887 LEAFs in the U.S. That’s down from the 1,234 LEAFs sold in October 2018 and marks the first return to sub-1,000 units sold per month since July when just 938 were sold.
In terms of 2019 YTD figures, the LEAF now stands at 9,998, which is down from the 11,920 YTD figure at the same point in time in 2018.
No Rise In Sight For LEAF Sales
It seems the LEAF has stalled out in the U.S. with the rise of longer range and comparably priced competition. Or perhaps everyone is spending a bit more to move up to the Tesla Model 3, Hyundai Kona Electric or Kia Niro EV.
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