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Nissan Leaf sets new November sales record, Chevy Volt drops again

When you talk to people in the plug-in vehicle industry, one theme you hear repeatedly is that the more plug-in cars that are out there, the better things are for everyone. One reason is that more EVs build a need for more public chargers, and more chargers mean more people see that plugging in is feasible. But there's still something to be said for old-fashioned competition, and in the sales race between the two long-running plug-in vehicles in the US, the Nissan Leaf is resoundingly beating the Chevy Volt for 2014. In fact, it won't be long before the EV's cumulative sales top the PHEV's. But that's a topic for another month. For now, we have the sales results from November. Unsurprisingly, Nissan set another monthly record (that is, the best Leaf sales in any November, the 22nd time in a row we've seen a monthly record) with 2,687 sales last month. That's up 34 percent over last November and up 35 percent year-to-date. Toby Perry, Nissan's director of electric vehicle marketing, said in a statement that, "Our 'Kick Gas' ad campaign and 'No Charge to Charge' launch in Chicago and Atlanta drove an increase in November Leaf sales. Even with gas prices falling across the country, consumers appreciate that the cost of driving a Nissan Leaf is still a fraction of that of a gas-powered car." Over on the Chevy side of the ledger, there were 1,336 Volt sales last month, down 30.4 percent from the 1,920 sold in November 2013. So far this year, Volt sales are down 16.4 percent and Chevy has sold 17,315 Volts in 2014. As we said last month, the Volt slump might be due to people waiting on the new version to make an appearance at the Detroit Auto Show next month before going on sale in the second half of 2015. So far in 2014, Nissan has sold 27,098 Leafs. Look for our detailed post of US green car sales in the near future. Until then, please discuss last month's Leaf and Volt sale in the comments, below. News Source: Nissan, General Motors Green Chevrolet Nissan Electric Hybrid PHEV ev sales hybrid sales

Takata adds millions to recall expansion in US [UPDATE]

UPDATE: Ford spokesperson Kelli Felker has advised Autoblog that of the 1,509,535 total vehicles worldwide that the company is recalling, 966,504 of them are new additions for this expanded safety campaign. Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that the Takata airbag inflator recalls would expand to an estimated 33.8 million vehicles in the US. However at the time, automakers weren't sure specifically which of their models might be affected under this enlarged campaign. Now, the numbers for BMW, FCA, Ford, and Mitsubishi are being released by the agency. Additionally, Honda is outlining the broadening of its own campaign. BMW's recall amounts to 420,661 vehicles in the US, an increase from 140,696 previously. All of the following models need their front, driver's side airbag replaced: 2002-2005 BMW 325i/325xi/330i/330xi Sedan 2002-2005 BMW 325xi/325i Sportswagon 2002-2006 BMW 330Ci/325Ci/M3 Convertible 2002-2006 BMW 325i/330i/M3 Coupe 2002-2003 BMW M5/540i/525i/530i Sedan 2002-2003 BMW 540i/525i Sportswagon 2003-2004 BMW X5 3.0i/4.4i BMW has received no reports of any injures or deaths from this problem in its vehicles. FCA has 5,224,845 vehicles globally in need of inflator replacements, according to its statement. However, the company is only aware of one injury related to the issue, which occurred in a 2006 Dodge Charger in southern Florida. There are 4,747,202 vehicles worldwide from the company that are affected on the front, driver's side. Among these, 4,066,732 are in the US, 374,508 are in Canada, and the rest are in other countries. The models are: 2005-2009 Dodge Ram 2500 Pickup 2004-2008 Dodge Ram 1500 Pickup 2006-2009 Dodge Ram 3500 Pickup 2007-2009 Dodge Ram 3500 Cab Chassis 2008-2010 Dodge Ram 4500/5500 Cab Chassis 2008-2009 Sterling 4500/5500 Cab Chassis 2004-2008 Dodge Durango 2007-2008 Chrysler Aspen 2005-2010 Chrysler 300/300C/SRT8 2005-2010 Dodge Charger/Magnum 2005-2011 Dodge Dakota 2006-2010 Mitsubishi Raider Also, there are 438,156 vehicles in the US, according to the NHTSA documents, that need their front passenger's side inflators replaced in the expansion of an earlier regional recall: 2003 Dodge Ram 1500 2003 Dodge Ram 2500 2003 Dodge Ram 3500 The total number of vehicles from Ford now covered under these campaigns stands at 1,509,535 worldwide. Of this total, there are 1,380,604 in the United States, 93,207 in Canada and 16,953 in Mexico.

Ghosn: Low oil prices won't hurt EVs much

Carlos Ghosn might be the most unflappable automotive CEO around. Despite lower gas prices and signs that these prices do impact green vehicle sales, the CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this weekend saying that people will continue to buy electric vehicles. "I don't think it is going to be slowing down," he said. "The people who are buying mainly for economic reasons may be deterred from it, but you have plenty of consumers buying EV for other reasons. On top of this, even though the price of oil is unpredictable – nobody has predicted last year that we would be at this level of oil price today and nobody knows where oil price will be next year or two years down the road – but what is predictable is that the regulation on emissions is going to get tougher in the various markets where we are present. So, our EV strategy is here not only to face too much dependence on oil or the cost of oil, but also to allow us to meet the very stringent regulations on emissions that are happening and will be happening in the future. So I can bet you that more and more car makers are coming to EVs and they're going to continue to build and sell EVs, even though the price of oil is coming down." The bit about oil prices and electric vehicles starts at 1:35 into the video. News Source: Nissan via YouTube Green Nissan Renault Emissions Gas Prices Electric Videos oil prices