Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on August 27, 2010
USA Today: As sales fall, is the hybrid car fad over?
Will it turn out that hybrid cars were just a fad that will go the way of bell-bottom pants?
The sales numbers this year seem to point to the possibility. Ford Escape hybrid sales were off 23.7% through the first seven months of the year, Toyota Camry hybrid sales were down 42.5% and Honda Civic hybrid sales fell 72%, Autodata reports. Toyota Prius, redesigned for 2010s are up only 4%.
And a recent Wall Street Journal article points to other disturbing data. Hybrid car sales are falling in the San Francisco Bay Area, a key market and a bastion of environmental consciousness. After peaking in 2007, they were down 36% last year and haven’t perked up. Of course, the weak economy could factor in that as well.
Gasoline prices are generally stable at less than $3 a gallon in much of the country, mitigating a lot of cocktail party boasting about how many miles per gallon a particular car gets. And the word is out that even higher mileage electric cars are just over the horizon, with the first due to go on sale by the end of the year.
But the hybrid sales issue could be bad news for automakers such as Hyundai, which is about to launch a hybrid version of the Sonata sedan, or Infiniti, which has a hybrid M class on the way.
3 Comments on "USA Today: As sales fall, is the hybrid car fad over?"
KenZ300 on Sun, 29th Aug 2010 9:47 am
In a bad economy with families budgets tight, paying even a few thousand dollars more for a hybrid vs non hybrid may be too much for the average consumer.
Windmills on Sun, 29th Aug 2010 11:00 pm
Interest in them will track the price of oil. If the manufacturers can hold out for another year or so, their sales numbers will rebound.
Simon Wigzell on Mon, 30th Aug 2010 10:50 am
The hybrid car – like the purely electric car – are not serious attempts to address the coming oil shortage and high prices. They are toys to make people feel good for a little while longer as we continue to avoid actually trying to solve the problem. We need to get over the very idea of private transport or we are just kidding ourselves. Good riddance hybrid and electric car with your several thousands of pounds of batteries containing rare metals making. Rare metals that have to be mined, refined and transported all at a huge expense in energy.