Top 10 selling Hybrids--Nov. 2008

Wow! With a margin of 4 to 1, the Prius must be the superior Hybrid. After all, consumers are not easily swayed. They buy quality and look for the 'best bang for the buck.' I wonder how much of the margin is attributable to the swell in sales a few months back when gas broke $4/gallon?

 

The chevy malibu sold less than 45 units...or was it not yet available?
If the sales were actually less than 45, would that cover the cost of all the air and print advertising out there? I think not.

 

<AHEM>And there were how many hybrids available for sale?

Ford Escape ~= Mercury Mariner
Saturn Vue ~= Saturn Aura

Back in my day (when we had to tromp through the blinding snow storms, up hill, both ways,) there weren't even 10 different hybrids for sale. I'm not sure there are that many more than 10 today. <grins>

Wait, maybe this list is for "all the children are above average" hybrid list.

Bob Wilson

 

As I have said before there is only one hybrid that has ever sold in numbers waranting the investment, the Prius. Which of these other hybrid models would you like to have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in? Are you sure about these numbers because my dealerships sold 3 malibu hybrids, one tahoe hybrid and two escape hybrids.

 

list means that they sell less than 45 per month

 

These are November sales figures, so $4/gallon was just a memory when people bought these vehicles. It was a bad month for hybrids in general - sales were down 50% from a year ago, compared to 37% for the general car market. But hybrids still accounted for 2.2% of all vehicle sales. The Prius is typically about half of all hybrid sales. Half of the remainder are various other Toyota hybrids.

I see basically the same thing at GreenCarCongress, except for the GM models. For quite awhile GM didn't break out their hybrid sales separately, I'm not sure if that's why the non-Saturn models aren't on the AOL list, but it's definitely an oversight:
Tahoe, Yukon + Escalade = 767 sales (10% of all of these models)
Chevy Malibu Hybrid = 195 (2% of all Malibus)

The Saturns were reported correctly.

For Toyota, the GS 450H and LS 600H both sold less than 45 units (42 and 37, respectively).

 

Not to rag on the Prius or anything, I love mine after all; but, I think that list is just indicative of the production volume of those vehicles. I have seen countless Priuses, and one each of numbers 2-5, and none of 6-10. If Ford was really churning out Escape Hybrids like they do with F-150's, I think they might be at the top, or at least second.

 

On Nov 24th 2008 Toyota said the first shift at Tmmk Georgetown Ky built their 100,000 th. toyota camry hybrid and only selling 2174 dont make sense to me.Im sure they didnt give the rest away.
I see the 2174 is for Nov.only would like to see sales on all hybrids for the year.
I have the 2009 Camry Hybrid but when i bought my 2005 Prius I seen only one other here in Lexington Ky.Now i see at least 5 every time i go to the malls.

 

Good point. Who is responsible for that situation? The automaker or the consumer?

Basically, none. I thought using hybrid technology to maximize absolute mpg was smart and using it to make an expensive luxury model of an existing vehicle was dumb (e.g not going to be a financial success). Is my thinking sensible or faulty?

I have yet to go to a dealer (Toyota and Honda!) that did not have the saleman desperately try and steer me away from the hybrids to the "better deals". There is a good posibility that your dealerships might not be terrified of hybrids, hence the sales.

 

The people buying hybrids right now are buying hybrids because they want to buy a hybrid and not really for the cost saving wwith gas @ 1.61/gallon. It would take quite a good sales job to take a customer looking for a camry and talk them into a prius or even a camry hybrid.

 

Yep, we bought our 2004 about 4yrs ago when fuel was between $1.60 - $2.00 gallon. We knew it'd go up. It did. It will again. But we simply bought it because data indicated it was the best thing to do. I'm thankfull our nation is using less fuel now (tho I wish it wasn't because of a slow economy) ... but our nations lower fuel consumption will hopefully let us plan for tomorrow better.
Hahahahahahah . . . right.

As for car sales people talking buyers into one car or another, I find that unlikely. Most sales employees know far to little about their product/services, whether cars, or wiring instructions for a mortgage payoff. When we bought our Lexus SUV hybrid, I was nearly ready to hang myself, with all the wrong data being spewed by the sales guy. You need to do your own homework
.

 

Respectable answer. Any idea why GM so badly mispredicted the fate of the hybrid when initially marketed?

The Volt should be very, very sucessful if executed right (mighty big if....). I'm not sure consciousness is a better explanation than the Volt being based on a very good hybrid architecture.

The strange thing is that I am still saving gas money at $1.61/gal. I would content that a real good sales job based on fact could be made for a high mpg hybrid even today.