Nissan touts a million EVs in 12 years—Tesla's 2023 tally so far

30 Jul 2023

On Tuesday, Nissan made the exciting announcement of crossing the one million mark in worldwide electric vehicle (EV) sales. It is an accomplishment that required a decade and two years to accomplish.

Electric vehicle - Figure 1 — Photo www.greencarreports.com

The car manufacturer was an innovator of contemporary electric vehicles, debuting the initial version of Leaf in December 2010. As the most enduring Nissan EV and the longest-serving electric vehicle in North America, Leaf makes up 650,000 out of the one million EV sales Nissan has achieved. Although the company has marketed the e-NV200 electric van, it has only recently started introducing additional electric cars such as the Ariya crossover SUV and the Sakura, which is exclusively available in Japan.

The initial 2011 Nissan Leaf was handed over to its purchaser in San Francisco during December of 2010, captured in a snapshot taken by Eugene Lee.

Out of those million sales, only 210,000 were made in North America. The largest portion, consisting of 320,000 sales, was recorded in Europe. China and Japan contributed equally with 230,000 electric vehicle sales each, while the remaining 10,000 were distributed among other areas.

Although Nissan should be acknowledged for being one of the pioneer car manufacturers to introduce a contemporary electric vehicle (EV), the company's efforts in expanding sales have been sluggish. In contrast, Tesla recorded approximately 889,000 vehicle deliveries within the first half of 2023 alone. Based on this pace, it is highly probable that Tesla has already exceeded one million deliveries for the current year as of late July. Notably, Tesla achieved one million annual EV sales in 2022 and even surpassed Toyota's sales in the significant California market during the previous quarter.

Electric vehicle - Figure 2 — Photo www.greencarreports.com

Introducing the revolutionary 2023 Nissan Ariya e-4orce electric vehicle.

On the other hand, Nissan has been quite tardy in introducing electric vehicles to its lineup. The arrival of the Ariya and Sakura models only occurred this year, in 2022. The sales figures for the Leaf, Nissan's previous electric offering, have been lackluster. It took Nissan until 2019 to surpass a cumulative global sales figure of 400,000 Leafs. It wasn't until 2020, a decade after production began, that they managed to surpass the milestone of 500,000 global Leaf sales.

Nissan seems to be becoming more bold in its intentions for electric vehicles. By 2030, the company aims to introduce 19 fresh electric models into the market and hopes to unveil electric vehicles utilizing solid-state batteries by 2028. The automaker anticipates that electric vehicles will constitute 40% of its sales in the United States by 2030. Furthermore, Nissan intends to construct two electric vehicles in the state of Mississippi beginning in 2025. These vehicles will include a Nissan-branded model and the first luxury EV from the Infiniti brand targeted at the American market.