Hybrid, plug-in sales growth slows on eve of new electric car's debut

With Tesla Model 3 deliveries beginning, July may be the last month for a while in which the growth of green-car sales in the U.S. can be measured with some sense of accuracy and perspective, as all signs point to a spike in year-over-year growth from here on out. And with that in mind, things didn’t look great last month. In fact, year-over-year sales of hybrids and plug-in vehicles were down for the first time this year, falling 9.6 percent from a year earlier to about 37,600 units.

Plug-in-vehicle sales remained on the positive side of the ledger, though they slowed to a 16 percent growth rate, hitting about 13,400 units. That’s factoring a general estimation of sales from Tesla, which continues to provide quarterly numbers for its global sales but nothing monthly or particular to the U.S.American automakers were the primary reason for the falloff, as both Ford‘s and General Motors’ July green-car sales were substantially less impressive than during the first half of the year. Read  more