Nissan Leaf outselling Chevy Volt

LOS ANGELES, July 16 (UPI) -- The all-electric Nissan Leaf, boosted by a lower sticker price, is outselling the Chevrolet Volt in the United States, the companies report.

U.S. buyers have acquired 4,134 Leaf cars in 2011 and 2,745 Volts, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Both cars are available in only a few states -- the Volt in California, New York, Michigan, Connecticut, Texas, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., and the Leaf in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington state.

GM plans to take the Volt national by the end of December and Nissan to do the same with the Leaf by the end of next year.

The Volt is technically a hybrid because it has an auxiliary gasoline generator that kicks in to recharge the battery once it has reached its 40-mile range. The car's sticker price starts at $41,000, compared with $33,630 for the Leaf.

Most of the cars are being acquired through purchases, with about 15 percent of Leafs and 33 percent of Volts going to leasers.

"These are early adopters, people who just can't wait to get their fingers on the car. They want to be able to say they own the car," Oliver Hazimeh, an automotive industry consultant at PRTM, said of electric-car buyers.