Add one more battery-electric vehicle to the list of electric cars for sale in California (if not the rest of the U.S.).
The 2014 Chevrolet Spark EV is now available for purchase or lease at several dealerships in northern and southern California, as well as a few in Oregon.
About a hundred of the electric minicars arrived last week at the San Francisco Bay Area port of Benicia, and are being delivered by truck this week to dealers in both states.
Our photo shows one of the very first Chevy Spark EVs being prepped for sale at Keyes Chevrolet, in Van Nuys, California.
Keyes is, incidentally, the nation’s fifth highest-selling dealer of Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric cars this year–so it knows plug-in electric cars.
Another 175 Spark EVs arrived at Benicia earlier this week, and will be distributed to dealers by the middle of next week.
GM appears to be more enthusiastic about the 2014 Spark EV than if it were simply a compliance car, as many surmise.
There’s been “a lot of excitement and anticipation” over the Spark EV, said Shad Balch, GM’s manager of environment and energy policy and communications, “particularly out West,.”
“We know that the Spark EV will attract first time electric-car buyers,” he continued.
2014 Chevrolet Spark EV
But, he said, the state of California’s $2,500 purchase rebate for the car “seals the deal.”
The 2014 Chevrolet Spark EV is priced at $27,495 and up before Federal and state incentives, and is also available on a three-year lease at $199 per month.
It is rated at 82 miles of range by the EPA, which gives it an efficiency rating of 119 MPGe.
(A Miles-Per-Gallon-Equivalent is a measure of how far the car can travel electrically on the amount of energy that’s contained in 1 gallon of gasoline.)
Unusually, InsideEVs first reported the arrival of the Spark EVs on Monday.
How’d that happen?
“The cars arrived in Chevy showrooms even earlier than we had hoped,” Balch said.
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