Hybrids lose their luster

Toyota’s high mileage, gasoline-electric Prius sedan was once so popular that the carmaker had only a three-hour supply. Buyers had to get on waiting lists, and frustrated would-be owners bid the price of used Priuses above the new price or paid thousands above sticker for new ones.

Now Toyota has a nearly 30-day supply, and it’s about to roll out its first national advertising campaign for the car, which
Environmental Protection Agency estimates gets as much as 60 miles per gallon. For the first time since Prius arrived in 2000, Toyota is also offering incentives.

What’s changed?

Not the nation’s ruinous dependence on imported oil. Not the fact that petrodollars underwrite terrorism and fill the coffers of
Iran, Russia, Venezuela and other states that use them to undermine U.S. interests. And not the fact that the United States uses a quarter of the world’s energy, propping up the hugely profitable oil market.

Partly, it’s that Toyota is building more Priuses, and other carmakers have offered their own fuel-efficient hybrids. But mostly it’s the price of gasoline. After spiking to more than $3 last year, a gallon of regular is back to a bit more than $2, calming the national anxiety about energy.

Sales of big vehicles have recovered – General Motors’ pickup and SUV sales rose by almost 33% one month last fall – and the huge demand for high-mileage cars has slackened. What had been an interesting national conversation about weaning ourselves from oil has been muted.

USA Today