Nissan LEAF Sales Strengthen In March, Takes All-Time US Plug-In Sales Lead

With the arrival of Spring, the thaw of oppressively low winter EV sales has also touched the Nissan LEAF, as 1,817 were sold in March.  The stronger showing was an improvement of 51% from February when 1,198 were sold.

However versus a year ago's results, Nissan struggled for the 3rd month in a row to keep up the pace - off almost 28% against the 2,507 sold in March of 2014.

During the month Nissan also celebrated its 75,000th LEAF sold in America, which was just about the time it also wrestled the crown away from the Chevrolet Volt for 'best selling plug-in in America'.

Both cars have been on sale now in the US for 52 months, with the LEAF now holding a slim 76,407 to 75,231 lead over the Volt.  Whether or not Nissan can hold off what is sure to be a hard charge from the next generation 2016 Volt in the Fall is still anyone's guess.

"We celebrated two major milestones in March: We reached 75,000 Nissan LEAF sales in the U.S., and now we are America's top selling plug-in vehicle," said Brendan Jones, director, Nissan Electric Vehicle Sales and Infrastructure.

Overall for the 2015, Nissan has now sold 4,085 LEAFs, which is off 21% from 2014 when 5,184 were sold.

March's stronger result should assist Nissan in starting to return to their historical EV market share in America north of 20%.  For the first 2 months of 2015 that number had sagged to just 17.5%.

March's stronger showing also meant that the LEAF's national inventories dropped slightly in the US last month, the first such occurrence in several months, but still at a fairly healthy level just below 6,000 units on average according to our research.

Also of note, Nissan's LEAF Facebook page with over 360,000 "Likes" disappeared this month. In its place, "Nissan Electric" has appeared featuring the e-NV200 and e-NV-200 Combi (pictured above).  Could this mean that the all-electric van is coming to America?  How could it not?

Sidenote:  Thinking about buying a used Nissan LEAF?  Check out InsideEVs' guide to doing just that here.