The battle for electric car supremacy is heating up, and for the first time it seems like the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf are really going head to head.
Nissan recently released a new commercial that includes a subtle jab at the Volt, showing a driver filling up his Volt - referencing the Volt's gas generator. Now, recent sales data shows that this war has spilled over to the dealerships as well.
According to USA Today, sales figures for the two cars are extremely close. In the auto industry, even if a car is behind by a few hundreds or even thousands it's considered to be pretty close. Yet the Volt and Leaf are separated by just 17 vehicles sold thus far this year.
The news source writes that this is "fairly amazing." The two cars are lumped in together often, but they're quite different in reality. The Leaf is all-electric, while the Volt uses the aforementioned generator to extend its range. There's also an $8,000 price gap between the two cars.
Still, the Leaf sold 2,184 cars from January to May, compared to the Volt's 2,167.
It's worth noting that sales really heated up for the Leaf in May, when it sold 1,142 cars. Before that, the Volt was in the lead, but Chevy only managed to sell 481 cars in May.