The Nissan LEAF Out-Sold A Lot Of Cars In August 2011

It may not be a popular opinion, but the Nissan LEAF was placed in 2011's The Bad 8 for purely personal reasons. After all, The Bad 8 has a selection committee of one. And when that one individual, The Good Car Guy, has no personal desire to own a Nissan LEAF - the vast majority of drives away from and to GCBC Towers would require far more than the LEAF's range permits - the LEAF is inevitably going to be harshly criticized by the selection committee.

However, the LEAF may be the ideal vehicle for certain individuals, certainly a decent second car for many new car buyers. And the sales success enjoyed by Nissan LEAF in the United States speaks to that fact. Its volume has been small in comparison with the Toyota Camry (30,185 August sales to the LEAF's 1362) but the LEAF has crushed the Chevrolet Volt, a car The Good Car Guy would suggest you maybe should at least consider considering before you determine the LEAF makes sense and cents for your family. 

Just yesterday Autoblog covered the Volt's inventory problems. There are Volts at dealers... but you can't buy them. Chevrolet sold 302 Volts in August; 3172 through the first eight months of 2011.

More to the point of this article, the Nissan LEAF's relatively small sales totals still stand up higher than the totals put up by cars you wouldn't have labelled unpopular. The Audi A5 is a sought after coupe, but the LEAF beat the A5 in August 2011. The Land Rover Range Rover Sport was America's 29th-best-selling luxury vehicle last month and 12th-best-selling luxury SUV. The LEAF beat the Range Rover Sport in August. The LEAF also crushed the currently-undergoing-renovations Toyota Yaris, fought off the perfect-for-family-hauling Mazda 5, whipped the failure-on-all-levels Honda Insight, and nipped the completely-opposite-to-the-LEAF Nissan Armada. 

The Good Car Guy compiled this table to show you 19 vehicles the LEAF beat and five the LEAF couldn't catch. There are many others the LEAF beat (and many others by which the LEAF was beaten) but these are the five closest it couldn't measure up to and the 19 next-closest models. The table reveals an impressive monthly showing for the Nissan electric vehicle, although it's important to note that on year-to-date terms, all but one of these models have out-sold the LEAF in 2011. 

As for the LEAF's importance to Nissan, it isn't. At least not on volume terms. As an image assistant, as a marketing tool, as a home for research and development, the Nissan LEAF is vital. But Nissan's sales figures would hardly be impacted by the LEAF's disappearance. It made up just 1.0% of all Nissan USA sales through the first two-thirds of 2011. Oh, and the Volt? Chevy's plug-in hybrid accounted for 0.3% of all Chevrolet sales so far this year.

Vehicle	August 2011	August 2010	2011 YTD	2010 YTD	% Of Brand's 2011 Sales
Volvo S60	1544	175	14,176	175	30.1
Lincoln MKS	1498	1111	7770	9729	13.4
Volkswagen Routan	1484	1560	9254	11,333	4.4
Buick Lucerne	1392	2656	15,905	18,571	12.6
Mazda 2	1387	469	9899	507	6.0
Nissan LEAF	1362	-----	6168	-----	1.0
Nissan Armada	1357	1638	11,565	12,442	1.9
Mazda 5	1326	1146	14,293	11,756	8.6
Audi A5	1322	1424	10,455	11,424	13.9
Land Rover Range Rover Sport	1199	860	9328	7650	40.7
Lincoln Town Car	1196	825	7882	7728	13.6
Nissan Quest	1182	4	7800	173	1.3
Suzuki SX4	1181	855	8481	7497	46.1
Infiniti QX56	1148	1249	7797	7003	12.2
Toyota FJ Cruiser	1146	1434	9276	9926	1.0
Honda Element	1144	1440	10,369	9746	1.5
Acura RDX	1139	1226	9326	9542	11.8
Scion tC	1114	1092	15,589	8848	46.2
Toyota Yaris	1112	2900	14,192	28,958	1.5
Mitsubishi Galant	1078	757	12,974	7023	21.6
Infiniti M	1072	1251	7244	9130	11.4
Audi A6	989	725	5580	5424	7.4
Mercedes-Benz S-Class	981	832	7430	8016	4.7
Honda Insight	961	2030	13,106	14,145	1.9
Lexus GX460	958	1227	7424	10,468	6.2

Source: Manufacturers

Related From GoodCarBadCar.net
Top 20 Best-Selling Cars In America - August 2011
U.S. Auto Sales By Brand - August 2011
Market Share Of America's 20 Best-Selling Vehicles - August 2011
2011's The Bad 8 v4.0 Part 7 - Nissan LEAF