Galpin Ford's Focus Electric sales estimate hints at low, low numbers

Galpin Ford bills itself the "#1 Ford dealer in the world by volume for 22 years in a row." Last month, the Los Angeles-based dealership sold around 900 vehicles. So, figuring out how many copies of the Ford Focus Electric Galpin expects to sell can give us some insight into how big of a hit Ford expects the all-electric hatch to be. That number, as best as anyone knows, is ten. Not per month or anything. Just ten. Maybe.

Jeff Greenfield, a sales consultant at Galpin, told AutoblogGreen that he doesn't have any specific numbers to share about Focus EV units that will be arriving at the lot later this year, but the last he heard, it was only ten. Still, he said he is "pretty sure we'll get a few more." Galpin salespeople have already been through training on the differences between the all-electric powertrain and other models, but the final number of possible deliveries is still unclear. This is LA, after all, where more than a few people are interested in EVs.

Ford's Wes Sherwood told AutoblogGreen that, "While we do not discuss individual dealer matters, we do plan to sell the car nationwide by the end of the year." He added:

We are pleased with the beginning of the Focus Electric launch and continue ramping up production, which we will match to demand. As we've said many times, we expect electric vehicle sales to be small for some time and have built our strategy around being as flexible as possible to meet demand as the market matures.

Still, Galpin's estimated numbers fit with what we've heard from the Blue Oval before. CEO Alan Mulally has said sales of under 5,000 in the first year would be acceptable. We're guessing that means the first full year the $39,200 car is on sale everywhere, since some fleet sales have already taken place, but not many.