Hybrid Car Review

Hybrid car sales rose once again to 18,283 units sold in the month of November, an increase of 13.5% over last year. Increases were mainly due to the introduction of the Toyota Camry Hybrid in April. Toyota and Ford hybrid sales were both up by 19.3% and 28.0%, respectively. Honda continues to suffer in comparison to last year, however, with Accord hybrid sales way down.

Honda continues to suffer from the strong start of the Accord Hybrid. The Honda Accord Hybrid was built with performance, not fuel economy, in mind. With only 311 units sold, sales were down 62.8%. Honda Civic Hybrid sales increased 6% to 2,208 units sold. While the out of production Insight sold 2 units.

Toyota had mixed numbers. While the Prius was up 1.5% to 8,008 units sold, the Highland Hybrid SUV was down 29.2% to 1,667 units sold. The Lexus RX 400h was also down 22.9% to 1,327 units sold. But the Toyota Camry Hybrid is still the second most popular hybrid car sold today, with 3,100 units sold (introduced in April, 2006). 176 units of the Lexus GS 450h (introduced in April, 2006) were sold.

Ford increased sales of its Ford Escape Hybrid and its luxury sister, the Mercury Mariner Hybrid by 28.0% to 1,484 units. (Note: I'm not entirely sure about that number. I'm thinking there's an issue with the number from my source. I'll check it and return if it needs fixing.)

Once again, Toyota sales would have dropped if not for the introduction of the Camry. The likely source of their problems is the phase out of the federal tax credit on hybrids built by Toyota. Toyota is currently petitioning Congress to extend the tax credits on hybrids in an effort to boost their sales (they are the only car company affected by the phase out, or for that matter, the only car company likely to be affected at all!).

At the same time, Toyota is still dominating the hybrid marketplace. They sold 78.1% of the hybrids in November (excluding the Vue Greenline, more about that below), with 43.8% of hybrid car sales coming from the Prius, by itself. Honda sold 13.8%, while Ford sold the remaining 8.1%.

The top selling hybrid cars in November were the Toyota Prius, the Toyota Camry Hybrid and the Honda Civic Hybrid.

Hybrid SUV sales were down 24.4%, while hybrid car sales were up 12.1%.

GM did not break out the Saturn Vue hybrids sale. I'm not sure how I'm going to go about reporting their sales or including their numbers. Again, you'll have to stay tuned. When I hear about it you will. I did see, according to autobytel, about 700 Vue Hybrids were sold in October.

October Hybrid Sales, 2006.