Hybrid, diesel, EV sales: Feb-Nov

Mostly probably because to prevent new tax increases or business tax ripoff. Very typical you will see big ticketed items sales go up before end of the year.

 

From December 2012 United States Auto Sales By Brand - GOOD CAR BAD CAR vs. November 2012 United States Auto Sales By Brand - GOOD CAR BAD CAR, it looks it's for the whole market.

 

Guess which country has purchased the most plug-in vehicles through 2012?

Electric car use by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yeah, it's the US by a long shot. Plug in vehicles are happening all over the globe, but sales are slow, like ~ 9k total in China ("Cumulative EV sales since January 2009 represent a market share of less than 0.01% of total new car sales in the country") ouch ...

about 12k in France ... we've bought about 75k of all plug in models.

Tough stuff to sell plug ins. Heard reports from 'beyond lithium ion' symposiums that Li Ion technology has nearly reached maturity and that scientists don't see a major breakthrough in battery technology to greatly increase energy density and lower cost. I think it's going to be slow going for plug ins, but I'm still hopeful for Tesla.

 

Are Graphene Supercapacitors the Big Break for Electrics?

http://www.energyharvestingjournal.com/articles/supercapacitors-replace-batteries-00004386.asp

 

I would like to see numbers for the Honda Civic NG (natural gas). I think it's being expanded to all states now?

 

Just make sure you get a good look at the trunk of the car, it is so tiny due to huge NG tank.

 

Holy near luxury hybrids, Batman! Those Avalon Hybrid numbers are striking.

 

We have the dashboard sales charts, but here's an interesting USnews review / ranking of popular hybrid, and plug in cars ....

Best Hybrid Cars Rankings | U.S. News Best Cars

Note, they like the driveability of Camry and Ford Fusion hybrid much more than liftback Prius. I found the same thing.

 

Twitchy is an understatement. On my Fusion, I found if I stay out of EV at highway speeds the car is more fuel efficient, yet extremely difficult to stay out of EV at 55. It uses more fuel to recharge the pack when below 60% SOC, then it does just running on ICE with a 75% SOC. The gains using EV are quickly lost recharging it.

Now this is on my car, which to date has had a very poor record of fuel efficiency, while other owners with car built weeks after mine are doing just fine.

I took our 2010 to work this morning, and with a pounding headache, lack of sleep and not really caring about what kind of gas mileage I got, my 10 returned a 40.6 this morning in 35* temps with wet roads. Why I cant do this in the 13 is beyond me.

However with that being said, you still cant beat the nice ride and handling, and try to find another Sedan like it that can get 35 MPG short of the Avalon.

 

SergiosP pointed out a global bestselling cars site. Chart below shows how Prius stacks up against 185 cars/light trucks/SUV globally thru 11 months in 2012 -

Prius liftback - 36th place
Prius c/ aqua - 60th place
Prius v/a/+ - 102 place

World 11 months 2012: Discover the Top 185 best-selling models! | Best Selling Cars – Matt's blog

 

Today it sunk in that Toyota really sells a battery electric vehicle. It sunk in while riding as a passenger in an all new Rav4EV after a Electric Auto Association - Silicon Valley Chapter (EAASV) meeting (thanks Brandy!) The CUV has a 41.8kWh pack in it, a Tesla drive train. That things hauls

 

^^^
Yeah, it's pretty quick and it's easy to spin the tires, esp. in sport mode.