Hybrid, diesel, EV sales: Feb-Nov

Bob,

First thank you for putting this together. You know what's the only thing that came to mind when I saw this?

We are being lied to again by the Govt and news media. Why? Reasons they are giving us why recently the stock market going through the roof is because consumer spending and increase auto sales. of all actual data I've seen does not support this, and today I saw this. Just confirmed my believe the stock market is being artificially prop up for a reason. Be careful!.

 

But, believe me, I wish the Accord Hybrid was out now. I can hardly wait to see it!

 

Stock market is not going through the roof. It is just reaching the levels it was 5 years ago.

 

Fusion Hybrid sales are down due to production, many people waiting for them to be built, and a good amount of them are on delivery hold for QC. Those numbers would be much higher if Ford could deliver them.

 

I took a look at the hybrid take rate in US (not plug in or diesel) back to 2007, in June only. dashboard didn't show 08, 09 #'s.

6/2007 - 2.4%
6/2010 - 2.2%
6/2011 - 1.2% (tsunami, supply probs)
6/2012 - 2.7%

Feb '13 was up to 3.3% for hybrids, so it's growing, but slowly.

 

Hybrid is now accepted in California. I see plenty on the road.

I wonder if the Great Recession and the fact that fuel prices almost doubled in the past 4 years and gas taxes have increased in many states is moving people to Hybrid and EV car purchases.

 

The fire story got me to this hopeful link from back in 2006. The pdf is quite informative of how optimistic people were when the gen II prius was supply constrained.
Alliance Bernstein says PHEV are "game-changing technology"

What went wrong? First the hybrid premium didn't get slashed down to $2000, as the analyst had hoped. Toyota doesn't really have strong competition, so its likely making higher profits keeping the hybrid premium up. The premium has gone down though. What else went wrong? The big thing was the automotive recession, which greatly cut Toyota, Ford, and GM's hybrid R&D. The pdf had predicted Toyota would have hybrid versions of all their vehicles by 2010, now it is most of its vehicles by 2016. Without the auto recession its likely the prius and prius c would be produced in the US at lower costs and some of that would get passed along to the customer.

The big question is post auto recession, will high penetration be achievable for hybrids and phevs. I would expect the answer is yes when you consider the 2025 café standards. It is likely that many automakers will produce at a miniumum mild hybrids and costs really will come down. That $2K premium may wait until 2020 with a gen V prius though.

 

(Raising hand!) Sold my precious Fusion Sport for a Hybrid version, gas costs were killing us. 20 MPG makes a world of difference.

 

Sad story is the Honda hybrids. Back in 2008, Honda sold a few thousand Civic hybrids per month, not they barely make 500. Here's some data -

Honda Civic hybrid

8/08 - 3,105 sold
5/09 - 2,077
10/10 - 662
11/11 - 503
8/12 - 579
2/13 - 433

Insight II started out alright as did CR-Z. Now they are all half buried selling only 400 ish a month.

IMA is going bye bye. I hope the new 'Two-motor' systems fare Much better.

I believe there is a big market for good midsize sedan hybrids (Camry hybrid), but they have to get really good FE (40+ combined) retain most of the trunk space and not cost over ~ $3,500 more. $3k up cost would be good spot.

 

I had a similar experience. I wanted to keep more of my own money rather than give it to large Oil Companies.

 

Honda has a new Accord Plug In. Time will tell if it takes off. I do not see many Accord Hybrid's on the road maybe it is also a fairly new car.

 

The new accord hybrid has not been released yet, only the phev. The plug-in is quite expensive compared to the c-max energi but doesn't have the range or cargo space. It also has to compete with the prius phv, volt, and fusion energi. It is new so time will tell, but I don't expect the accord plug in to sell in high numbers.

 

Accord plug-in is only sold in NY and CA right now. I don't expect many Accord plug in to be sold, but I really hope the Accord hybrid is a strong competitor to Camry hybrid.

Accord hybrid will be Honda's first 'full' hybrid for sale, not counting Accord plugin hybrid.

 

The defunct (V6) HAH sold very poorly. I believe the 07 model year was its last. I almost never see them.

At the time, it was amongst one of the few (if not only) performance hybrids. It was faster than the V6 Accord, got bettter FE than the 4-cylinder Accord but was expensive and its FE figures looked not-so-good next to the Prius and HCH. It had some neat stuff like 2 AC compressors: 1 belt driven and a smaller electrically driven one. (More at Honda Accord Hybrid - Road Test - Car Reviews - Car and Driver. The EPA ratings there the inflated pre-MY07 ones.).

It'll be interesting to see how well the new HAH does, whenever it goes on sale.

 

You can see it compared to the other power v6 hybrid of the day the lexus gsh. The hah got 3 fewer mpg than honda's current non-hybrid, but the killer was it was much more expensive than the camry hybrid of the day.
Compare Side-by-Side

The car did 0-60 in 6.9 which while nice is only a tiny bit faster than today's tch with 7.2. I doubt most hybrid drivers would notice the difference.

 

I think the hybrid cars dashboard report is wrong and double listed/counted the PHEV Accord as the PHEV and a (not available) hybrid.

There's 3 that sorta fit the description:
Honda Accord Hybrid - Road Test - Car Reviews - Car and Driver - V6 HAH, dead as of MY 07, sold poorly. Notice that C&D review is from 2004.
2014 Honda Accord Plug-In Overview - Official Site - I think this is a CA compliance car. I saw a pre-production one at AltCar Expo late last year.
Honda Accord Hybrids - Official Site - not available yet, apparently

 

Hi Bob,

Honda has 2 hybrids coming out this year. The Accord Plug-in (hybrid) went on sale about Jan 15th in CA and NY. It's on Hondas website.

2014 Honda Accord Plug-In Overview - Official Site

The non-plug in hybrid should be going on sale in August 2013 as mentioned by sales rep at Fremont Honda.

Honda Accord Hybrids - Official Site

woops, we double teamed Bob

 

I noticed a spike in sales across all models in Dec.
I wonder if this happens across all models or just alt-fuels?
People rushing to get tax benefits before end 2012?