Volt Sales Mid-Month Update

[Henry_FL]

I have been tracking daily the inventory of Autotrader.com and Cars.com since the beginning of the month

Bottom line is this will be for sure a record sales month for Volts, if the following trend continues an all time record in sales -- currently about 1700 volts have sold ... based on the data points below.

This with the following data points

1) 2347 Volt manufactured since production restart reporting a VIN near ..
2) VIN 17177 is now on Voltstats.net so at a minimum
3) 2347 were added to inventory and at dealers since Feb15th restart
4) 1023 reported sold for February of which 600 were inventory before restart ( previous AT number were 4000, declined to ~ 3400 )
5) leaving 1924 to increase inventory if none sold but
6) inventory has increased 226
7) leaves mid month sales ~1698


3-15-2012 7-21-22 PM.jpg

[artsci]

This may sound cruel, but I hope gas prices keep rising. This will accelerate the essential transition away from gas powered cars to alternatives like the Volt. For my own interests I no longer give a damned about the price of gas, as I almost never need to buy it. But I pity others who are not as fortunate.

[bonaire]

I did this before in November and "thought" there were going to be 2000 sold (numbers changed drastically just after they allowed dealers to sell demos). However, I got thwacked in the end with something like 1083 or so instead.

Hoping for 1500 in my view - and that would be darn close to the record December '11 month. 1700 would be cream.

[Henry_FL]

I concede this is just a best estimate guess with the various data points.

A small difference between November 2011 and March 2012 is the production numbers, which are running close to 4500 month, so they have to be going somewhere and its NOT showing up in the net inventory numbers

What I'm not sure on is how fleets sales falls into this. in 17 days we shall know

[bonaire]

I saw something strange today on cars.com. The dealership in Buffalo that I still haven't gotten to yet (plan to this week) now shows 12 Volts on cars.com but only 6 on their own home page. The new ones listed on cars.com all have low-VIN numbers like CU102100 and CU101375 (early MY'12). They either got units from other dealers or from a lot in Michigan where they were sitting. I have to wonder if they are getting them for fleet sales in Western NY this month or will offer for sale/lease to the public. Some bigger dealers can sell Volts well but the little ones really have very few on the lot or only their Demo intended for test drives and ordering.

[zete]

Production may be 4500 but that includes Volts to Canada and Australia and Amperas to Europe.

Question is, do Amperas use the same VINs as Volts. If they do, that'll throw your numbers off.

What I've noticed is that the total number of Volts available in the US according to cars.com seems to stay around 4400, give or take 100. If that's the case and GM is building 1000/week, then either most are going overseas or they've sold about 1000 -- assuming 1/2 of production is headed to Europe, Canada and Australia combined.

We won't know for sure until the end of the month, unless GM suddenly opts to cancel the plant shutdown on the 19th which would be indicative of much higher than expected sales.

If they have sold 1000 so far, then 2000 is not out of the realm of possibility for March. If the split is heavier to the US the sales numbers will be appropriately higher. If more are swung abroad, then the numbers will be lower.

We'll have to wait to find out.

[Brittt1]

How does the Ampera Vins figure in these numbers? surely that drops your sales number...

Edit: I see Zete asked the same Q above

[mustardman]

Yea, keep tracking VIN numbers and keep finding out they are meaningless when the sales come in. Just keep repeating that. The VIN numbers are the key to it all.

[quartzav]

These tension...can you just ignore any discussion related to VIN or LEDs

Yea, keep tracking VIN numbers and keep finding out they are meaningless when the sales come in. Just keep repeating that. The VIN numbers are the key to it all.

[Enrique]

We won't know for sure until the end of the month, unless GM suddenly opts to cancel the plant shutdown on the 19th which would be indicative of much higher than expected sales.

I don't expect GM will cancel the shutdown, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them bring the plant online a week or two early if demand picks up. That would be much better press anyway.. "due to strong demand and short supply, Volt factory re-opens early..." I imagine that might shut up the naysayers for quite some time. Speaking of, a lot of them seem to have retreated back into the woodwork over the last week.. maybe $4.50 gas (in Chicago and CA anyway, and soon to come elsewhere I'm sure) is finally starting to make people think twice???