Hybrid sales are down? Hmmm, could this be because of the way the car companies chose to build and market hybrids?
"V8 power with V6 gas mileage!"
Umm, who the fuck wants that? Oil is $70/barrel and gas is $3/gallon. The polar ice caps are melting and car exhaust is a huge contributor. Do you want V8 power with V6 mpg or do you want to do something responsible for change?
The sale of real hybrids like the Prius are still going strong and I expect to see good signs with the Camry hybrid as well. The people who care enough to buy a hybrid in the first place dont want an SUV and those folks that need room for a gun rack and the seven adult friends they dont actually have are going to keep buying Denali's and Yukons until the law says they cant.
This "hybrid math" will help the people who are on the fence or who will do the right thing if it doesn't cost them anything. Sadly, the math doesn't add up so its no surprise to me that sales have been slow. Then again, Im still waiting for a luxurious small call.
Consumer Drive For Hybrid Autos Is Slowing Down
By JOHN D. STOLL and GINA CHON
April 7, 2006
Ford Motor Co. said it will offer 0% financing for up to five years on its Escape Hybrid sport-utility vehicle through July 5 in an effort to spur sales, in the latest sign that the initial rush of consumer enthusiasm for some gasoline-electric hybrids is cooling off.
Toyota Motor Corp. recently offered 3.9% financing on five-year loans to spark demand for its Highlander Hybrid SUV. The Japanese company delivered 20% fewer such vehicles than it expected in 2005, and the auto maker recently cut production of Highlander Hybrids by more than a third in an effort to match output with demand.
Ford is on pace to sell about 35% fewer Escape hybrids than it has capacity to build at its plant in Kansas City, Mo., although sales have picked up since January.
Honda Motor Co. sold 581 Accord Hybrid vehicles in March, a 69% decline from the same period last year, according to Green Congress, which compiles statistics on sales of hybrids. The Accord Hybrid costs about $7,000 more than a regular Accord, while premiums on other hybrids are closer to $3,000 to $5,000.
Hybrids like the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid still enjoy strong demand. But the slowdown for some other models comes as more consumers are questioning whether hybrid vehicles deliver sufficient fuel savings in real-world driving to justify the extra cost of the technology. The Accord Hybrid gets slightly less gas mileage than the gas-only version. A Honda Accord Hybrid, with a V-6 engine, gets 25 miles per gallon in the city and 34 miles per gallon on the highway, while the less expensive, conventional four-cylinder Accord gets 26 mpg in the city and 34 on the highway.
A recent, widely publicized report by Consumer Reports said only two of six hybrid models studied recovered the price premium after five years and 75,000 miles. The Prius and Civic Hybrid provide a savings of several hundred dollars.
The regular Rav4 does just as well as the hybrid Escape? What's wrong with that picture?
(Curious that the online version of this article has a completely different title from the version in the actual paper, which was "Luxury on Display at Auto Show".)
The New Hybrid Math
Even With Tax Break, Many Current Hybrids Don't Deliver Fuel Savings to Justify High Price
April 10, 2006
How tough is it in the U.S. auto market? So tough that now even last year's "Big Idea," gas-electric hybrid SUVs, seems to be running out of gas. Late last week, Ford said it will offer 0% financing for up to five years on its Ford Escape Hybrid models.
Ford's 0% Hybrid Escape offer is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it's the latest sign that no-interest financing is back, albeit in a limited way.
The hybrid Escape discount also points to a development that must be troubling for the car makers that have plowed so much money into engineering and promoting gas-electric hybrid technology. The message from the marketplace is becoming increasingly clear: Hybrid versions of mainstream models that don't deliver significant real-world fuel savings over their conventional counterparts have a very limited audience.
The Hybrid Calculator Conundrum -- which results when a consumer armed with a calculator realizes that even with a tax break, many of the current hybrids don't pay back in fuel savings the premium paid to own them -- is starting to catch up with Toyota and Ford and Honda. Ford's discount offer on the gas-electric Escape comes as Toyota is scaling back shipments of its Toyota Highlander hybrid SUV. And it didn't help the Highlander or the Escape that Consumer Reports dumped all over hybrids in its recent New Car issue, a widely read and influential reference for vehicle shoppers.
It's not that Consumer Reports doesn't like hybrids. It's just that the Consumer Reports folks couldn't figure out how the owner of anything other than a super-high-mileage Toyota Prius or Honda Civic could get back the extra money spent to own one.
It doesn't help a vehicle like the Escape that the new four-cylinder Toyota RAV 4 gets 30 miles to the gallon on the highway (on paper, according to the government's admittedly unrealistic test) compared with 31 mpg highway for the more-expensive hybrid Ford.
According to a comparison generated by the www.fueleconomy.gov1 Web site, the four-cylinder Toyota RAV 4's annual fuel cost is $1,496, compared with $1,177 a year for the hybrid Ford. But the hybrid Escape's base price is about $6,600 more than a base RAV 4 with automatic transmission. At that rate, you'd need 20 years to repay the base price difference in fuel savings, barring a big jump in fuel prices. Yes, a tax credit will help, but not enough to close the gap.
