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The HybridCars.com monthly sales Dashboard is a collaboration of HybridCars.com and Baum & Associates, a Michigan-based market research firm focusing on automotive issues including the hybrid and electric vehicle market.

Overall sales for November continued at an extremely high level and were up slightly from a year ago, although there were two fewer selling days than last year (thus the rate of increase on a selling days basis was greater).

Sales in recent months have been strong, with increasing truck sales significantly offsetting a decline in car sales. Plug-ins had another good month (on the strength of the new Volt), but the other categories of higher mileage vehicles (particularly regular hybrids and diesels) were down.

Sales for full electric vehicles were up from October of this year but down from November 2014. As a share of total sales, November sales were above the year-to-date share and close to best-ever results.

The Tesla Model S continued to pace the category and had an (estimated) best ever result of 3100 units. Tesla is seeking to sell 50,000 units globally and needs a strong fourth quarter to reach that goal. Because a very small number of Model X sales have been realized, sales of the Model S must be the models to reach this goal. Thus, we expect to see an even higher number of Model S sales in December (and a modest number of Model X sales as “regular” production begins).

Sales of the Nissan Leaf were below the last several months but should improve going forward as the new model becomes fully available. The Volkswagen e-Golf had another decent month, but availability may be constraining sales.

Plug-in hybrids enjoyed a good month, entirely based on the strength of the new Chevrolet Volt. The new model is now fully available in the 11 “launch” states with national availability next spring. Note that production has increased so availability and presumably sales will continue to increase.

Meanwhile, BMW has launched a plug-in hybrid version of the X5 (we are also including sales from October that were not previously reported). As a share of total sales, plug-in sales in November were above the year-to-date level, although well below best ever results.

As for hybrids, these had another poor month; in fact their share of total sales was the lowest since September 2011. The Toyota RAV4 hybrid debuted in November which should sell well given the popularity of the overall nameplate. Each of the three Prius nameplates were down and the new version of the product will not be fully available until early next year. Year-to-date, hybrids are down 16 percent compared to last year, with most entries down. As compared to last November, most of the major hybrid products were down with many down 10 percent or more. The Prius Liftback was actually up from last November, but down 9 percent year-to-date. The Ford Fusion Hybrid turned in a very poor performance, and is down over 30 percent year-to-date.

Diesel sales continued to decline as even more VW models were pulled from sale (the only two remaining in November were the Porsche Cayenne and VW Touareg). After initially stating that the 3.0 diesels were not involved (contrary to the EPA assertions), VW pulled those products from sale and a fix is in process. Compared to last November, clean diesel sales were down almost 50 percent and 9 percent for the year (which will of course increase due to poor sales in December). Sales in November were dependent upon the Ram Pickup which represented almost 60 percent of total sales. Two new products were added this month, the Range Rover and the Range Rover Sport. Diesel is a good fit with the brand and sales should be reasonable going forward. The BMW X5 diesel is also showing growth but is down year-to-date. Although the Ram and the VW products have dominated this segment, other diesels are also well below year-ago results.