The American-made Volt handily beat its Japanese competitors in US sales of plug-in vehicles for the month of May.

The American-made Volt handily beat its Japanese competitors in US sales for the month of May. The major makers of plug-in vehicles have released their sales figures for the month, and the score is:

Chevrolet Volt:               1,680
Toyota Prius Plug-in:     1,086
Nissan LEAF:                 510
Mitsubishi i:                    85

The first Ford Focus Electrics arrived at dealerships in late May. Fisker doesn’t provide monthly sales figures, but it announced last week that it had sold 1,000 Karmas since December 2011.

To draw any broader conclusions from these figures would be perilous, considering that some of these models are still not available nationwide, many dealers are not actively pushing them, and the general public is still not clear on the differences among hybrids, PHEVs and EVs.

But, what the hey, let’s do so anyway:

 – Volt sales have surpassed 7,000 for the year to date (about the same as total 2011 sales), so it appears that GM’s projection of 10,000 for the first year was not as wildly over-optimistic as critics claimed.

 – The two PHEVs are trouncing the two pure EVs. Does this vindicate the many commentators who say that range issues cause consumers to prefer plug-in hybrids?

 – Total sales for all plug-in models currently amount to about a quarter of a percent of total US light-duty vehicle sales. That’s not a spectacular blast-off, but for a new product that’s still arguably in the test-marketing phase, it’s pretty impressive.

Source: AutoBlogGreen, InsideEVs
Image: Chevrolet