2017 Toyota Prius Prime and 2017 Chevrolet Volt with Green Car Reports editor John Voelcker
Enlarge PhotoThe Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid again took the crown among plug-in electric cars whose makers report monthly sales.
A total of 2,132 Volts were sold in March, bringing its three-month sales to 5,563 units, higher than any other car with a plug over the same period.
Its stablemate, the Chevy Bolt EV electric car, however, logged only 978 sales, a disappointing number for the 238-mile electric car now in the process of a lengthy national rollout.
The underwhelming nature of the Bolt EV sales is indicated by a comparison to those of the aging, soon-to-be-replaced, much lower-range Nissan Leaf.
DON'T MISS: Plug-in electric car sales for Feb: Volt outsells Prius Prime, Bolt EV, Leaf
Sales of the Leaf last month totaled 1,478, its best total since December—and 50 percent higher than those of the Bolt EV.
To be fair, however, Nissan likely accomplished that number with very high incentives; reports of discounts as high as $6,000 to move Leafs have trickled in over the past few months.
Toyota delivered 1,618 Prius Prime plug-in hybrids, or 16.6 percent of all Priuses sold last month, a remarkably high proportion.
Overall sales of the Prius hybrid hatchback are down significantly from its pinnacle a few years ago, which boosts the plug-in version's percentage in comparison.
The Prius Prime still lagged the Volt, but it outsold every other plug-in electric vehicle whose sales are reported.
READ THIS: Tesla delivered 25,000 electric cars in Q1 2017, plus or minus
Among other high-volume plug-in cars, 342 Volkswagen e-Golfs were delivered.
That's low for the all-electric version of the Golf hatchback, but the upcoming 2017 e-Golf will offer 50 percent more range, with an EPA rating of 125 miles.
That makes it less remarkable that the current outgoing model saw low delivery numbers.
2016 Audi A3 e-Tron Sportback, San Francisco Bay Area, Oct 2015
Enlarge PhotoAudi, meanwhile, delivered 414 A3 e-tron plug-in hybrid hatchbacks, its second-best month ever.
Fully 25 percent of the Audi A3 luxury compact cars delivered this year have been the plug-in hybrid, a very high percentage among mainstream makers.
CHECK OUT: Lessons learned from early electric car: 2011 Nissan Leaf at 90,000 miles
Tesla delivered 25,000 electric cars during the first three months of the year, but that's a global figure and its U.S. sales were not specified.
As always, Tesla refuses to release monthly sales data by country as other makers do.
One outlet using different data to estimate Tesla's U.S. sales suggest that the domestic number has fallen substantially from a year ago, but that can't be confirmed with the company.
We will update this story throughout the day and tomorrow as more data is received.
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