Right on cue, Chevy Bolt EV deliveries shift to North America

*Update* Canadian sales estimates for September have been swapped with official numbers.

A General Motors representative also confirmed to InsideEVs that the automaker will hit 200k sales in Q4. According to Megan Soule at GM:

"Correct - we do expect to still hit the 200K EV milestone this year."

The full tax credit will therefore be available on purchasing a Chevy or Cadillac plug-in through March, 2019. A 50% credit would then be available through September, 2019. Finally a 25% credit will be available until March, 2020. That is, as long as congress can keep their hands off of it.

Tesla is also currently in the phase out period. If you have been considering a Chevy Bolt EV, Chevy Volt, CT6 Plug-In, or any Tesla model now is the time.

Original Article 10/10/2018 at 5:10 am

This summer, we noted that Chevy Bolt EV inventories and sales in the US had been very low. This year, the automaker put much greater focus on exports. South Korea has been the biggest beneficiary of this. After a solid performance in late March + April selling over 500 units, the Bolt EV jumped to the top of the Korean EV charts for May with 1,014 sold. Following this success, we were astonished to see the Bolt EV hit an impressive 1,621 deliveries in June followed by a solid July of 872 deliveries. August brought an additional 631 units.

But in September, South Korean allocations all but stopped. Last month, Chevrolet delivered only 70 Bolt EVs to Korea.

Still, the Bolt remains the 4th bestselling GM Korea domestic model for 2018. Year-to-date totals are at 4,695 units, up 1,028% from 2017. While South Korea does not have a ZEV mandate, they are taking a carrot approach to EV adoption. Regional subsidies for electric vehicles can exceed $23,000.

As we previously speculated, South Korean numbers were unlikely to continue at that breakneck pace for the entire year. Roughly 5,000 units were expected to be sold in South Korea in 2018. GM Korea tells us they are sold out and currently making final Bolt EV deliveries for 2018.

However, a planned production increase this quarter should provide the Bolt-hungry Korean market with more inventory in 2019. GM Korea spokesperson Jiyeon Yeom told InsideEVs they are currently working to "secure sufficient volumes to satisfy many Korean customers next year."

GM has been teetering on the edge of 200,000 deliveries for months now. So we can think of a few reasons why GM might have focused on exports at the expense of U.S. sales. While they likely won't state a specific reason for this tactic, they have addressed the drop in U.S. Bolt sales.

GM spokesperson Jim Cain told CNBC this month:

The decline is more a function of us diverting production to Canada and South Korea, coupled with low stocks in the U.S. We're still proceeding with the Q4 production increase we announced in the last sales release.

North American inventories are now recovering and early October sales are very promising. After U.S. Bolt inventories languished at ~2,500 for months, vehicles at or in transit to dealers shot up from ~3,000 units to ~4,500 in the past 6 weeks.

As far as overall international sales are concerned, current year-to-date totals are as follows:

Chevy Volt

U.S. - 13,243

Canada – 3,456

China (Buick Velite 5) – 1,419 through August

South Korea – 116

Mexico – 25

Chevy Bolt

U.S. - 11,807

South Korea – 4,695

Europe (Opel Ampera-e) – 2,129 through August

Canada – 1,944

Mexico – 10

E100/E200

China – 11,872 through August

The biggest plug-in seller for General Motors is the Chevy Bolt EV (20,541), followed by the Chevy Volt (18,303). We do not have sales figures for the Cadillac CT6 Plug-in for China but they are insignificant in North America. The Baojun E100 is GM's biggest seller internationally. Baojun (jointly owned by GM and SAIC Motor) recently expanded availability of the tiny electric offering. The automaker also announced that the E200 will replace the E100 on the market.

European and Chinese sales data via CarSalesBase. Mexico data via GM Authority. Canadian data is reported by GreenCarReports.