2013 was a great year for electric vehicle industry in terms of sales not though in terms of business growth.
More than 90,000 fully electric cars and plug-in hybrids were sold in 2013 – almost double from those of 2012, says Scientific American.
The industry, however, witnessed some dip in sales due to bankruptcy filings of American electric vehicle start-ups Coda Automotive and Fisker Automotive, the report said.
EV manufacturers were forced to lower prices across the board in hopes of driving sluggish sales. This resulted in more sales throughout the U.S. The slight dip in fuel costs also lessened the need for an alternative, fuel-efficient vehicle.
Nissan Motor Company, the manufacturer of Leaf electric vehicle, experienced 130 percent increase in sales of the Leaf selling 22,610 vehicles. This was completed after dropping the price by 18 percent to $28,800.
General Motors Company dropped the price of the Chevy Volt by $5,000 to boost sales, which resulted in just more than 23,000 sales. This was still down from the previous year by a little more than one percent; however, it out-sold the Leaf.
Tesla Motors sold approximately 20,000 units of the Model S, which is especially impressive considering the Model S was involved in three gnarly fires in 2013 and costs around $85,000.
Toyota dropped the price of the Prius Plug-In by $2,000, but still experienced a decrease in sales from the previous year. However, the gasoline powered Prius hybrid sold a record-amount in 2013 with 345,000 units sold. Toyota accounts for more than 60 percent of all hybrid sales in the industry.
Ford offered the Fusion Electric; Honda has the Accord Plug-In; then there’s the Cadillac ELR, Chevy Spark EV, and FIAT 500e Electric, all of which came out in 2013.
Toyota plans to base its electric vehicle strategy around hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Toyota’s current hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle debuted in 2013 has the ability to travel 300 miles and emits nothing more than water.
In 2015, the hydrogen fuel-cell will be produced. More than $200 million has already been committed to building 100 hydrogen fueling stations by 2024, the report said.