General Motors announced this week that it has sold 100,000 of its plug-in electric cars, the Chevrolet Volt.
The number is an important milestone for one of the first mainstream electric cars to hit the market back in late 2010.
The Chevy Volt drives first on battery power, and when the battery gets discharged to a certain point, a modest gas engine kicks in. The industry calls these extended range electric cars, or plug-in hybrids compared to all-electric cars.
GM (GM) has seen a boost in Volt sales this year following the introduction of the second-generation Volt in late 2015. The new Volt uses more energy dense, but fewer, batteries supplied by LG Chem.
That means the new Volt can drive on battery power longer than its predecessor. GM says the new Volt can drive on battery power for 53 miles, and when combined with gas, it can go 420 miles.
GM sold 2,406 Volts in July of this year, which was its best month of Volt sales since August 2014 as well as 83% more cars sold than in July 2015.
The American automaker plans to launch a low-cost, all-electric car dubbed the Bolt, which will be able to drive on 200 miles of battery power and is aimed to compete with Tesla’s upcoming Model 3. GM has already started pre-production of the Bolt, and will start retail production at the end of this year.
To learn about why GM expects big growth in China, watch:
Tesla (TSLA) has shipped a little over 100,000 of its high-end electric cars over its lifetime. But the California company, led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, plans to ship another almost 80,000 cars this year and boost production to 500,000 cars annually by 2018.
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Nissan has been selling its low cost all-electric LEAF since mid-2010. The company has sold 225,000 Nissan LEAFs over the years.
However, Nissan’s LEAF sales have been slowing down as customers wait for a more competitive Nissan LEAF with a 200-mile battery range to come out.