Electric-vehicle brands are rapidly bifurcating into haves and have-nots. There are Tesla and BMW, which seem to be the biggest “haves” at the moment in terms of sales, brand appeal, buzz and a future. And then there are Chevrolet Volt, Cadillac ELR, Nissan Leaf and the others that are becoming the resigned “have-nots.”

Chevrolet CMO Tim Mahoney confirmed at an industry gathering in Michigan this week that General Motors will be debuting a new version of Volt, the original plug-in hybrid, next year at the Detroit Auto Show, and he promised significant improvements in design and technology, though not in range.

Yet, as Mahoney recently told brandchannel, GM has stopped holding out hope that Volt will become a mass-market vehicle anytime soon as the company has watched a continued decline in mainstream-market interest in the vehicle, with sales down by 9 percent so far this year compared with a year ago even though it still outsells Tesla’s Model S.[more]

“The reality is that there’s a finite market for Volt, and it’s geographical,” Mahoney said. “California is the epicenter; it’s not about selling Volt in Oklahoma. And we’ve gotten smarter about deploying resources for the vehicle.” Volt is “an impressive product in its design, performance and technology,” he continued. “Its’s a real halo for the brand. It’s done a tremendous amount to conquest new buyers” and “customer satisfaction is through the roof.”

Not so much in Europe, though. Last month, GM announced that Opel would stop selling its Ampera model, which was comparable to the Volt, as the vehicle has been a sales disappointment there too.

After the eventual run-out of the current generation Ampera, we’ll introduce a successor product in the electric vehicle segment. 3/3 /KTN — Karl-Thomas Neumann (@KT_Neumann) July 23, 2014

Volt aficionados in the US got something else to brag about recently when their car passed new Insurance Institute of Highway Safety crash tests that were meant to be more rigorous about certain types of frontal collisions—while rival Nissan Leaf, the original all-electric vehicle intended for the US mass market, failed the new test and lost its Consumer Reports recommendation.

#Volt leads the charge in safety. Learn more about its IIHS 2014 Top Safety Pick+ award here: http://t.co/HdcnfyxjaV pic.twitter.com/WHyNOQa0xF — Chevrolet Volt (@ChevyVolt) July 30, 2014

After a significant price cut last year, Leaf sales were up by about 35 percent in the US compared with last year, an encouraging sign for EVs. But Leaf sales remain far short of their initial projections, as do sales of Volt, because gasoline prices have moderated and because rank-and-file American consumers haven’t believed in ponying up many thousands of extra dollars just to buy a vehicle that’s pretty pedestrian otherwise but that happens to be able to take them short distances on electricity alone.

There’s at least hope for the EV category in the upper ends of the market. In that rarefied arena, Tesla is still selling Model S sedans in the US at a rate of more than 5,000 a year despite their $70,000-and-up pricetag, especially in California. Founder Elon Musk continues to stoke enthusiasm about the future of the brand, especially on social media, by promising introduction of a crossover Tesla model next year and, within a few years, a car priced around $35,000 that will use cheaper batteries built at the “gigafactory” that Tesla plans to build with Panasonic in one of five US states.

BMW has been stoking excitement for its all-electric i3 small sedan since debuting it last year and introducing it to the US market this spring, but it delivered just 5,400 i3s globally during the first two quarters of this year. “Based on the rave reviews the BMW i3 has been given by major news outlets, celebrities and advocates alike, we’ll admit we’re a little surprised by just how few BMW i3s were sold globally” in that period, wrote the green-car blog TransportEvolved.com.

Meanwhile, BMW’s Tesla S fighter, the i8 plug-in hybrid, was a quick seller to high-end customers in Europe, but BMW is now saying that, in the US, i8 is only “on the horizon.”

The future revealed: @BMWEspana presented the #BMWi8 at a glamorous launch event in the heart of #Madrid: http://t.co/geBJl7a3HK — BMW i (@BMWi) August 7, 2014

And as for GM’s once-celebrated “Tesla fighter,” the Cadillac ELR, a plug-in hybrid sibling to Volt? Fuggedaboutit: Interest in ELR might actually have spiked with the controversial Caddy TV commercial during the Winter Olympics in February about “American” luxury cars that only secondarily highlighted ELR. Actual sales have been absolutely meager, with only 578 ELRs sold through July.

That has made ELR a palooka so far, and it’ll be up to new Cadillac boss Johan de Nysschen to figure out what to do with it.

• Connect with Dale on Twitter: @daledbuss