Hybrid Car Review

Even though total car sales in the US were down 12 percent, hybrid car sales were up 11.5% from last July, and have gone over the 210,000 units sold through this year. Toyota, Nissan, Ford, and Honda sold 28,585 units in the month of July. Toyota sold 80.9% of those hybrids, of which 70% were Prius.

Honda has cumulative hybrid car sales since January, 2006 of just under the 60,000 mark. Expect them to break through next month, sending them into the hybrid tax credit phase out period at the end of March next year.

Of the ten full hybrids I track, only the Prius and the GS 450h increased sales from last July. But the Civic, Prius, Camry, GS450h and Escape/Mariner hybrids are still up in cumulative sales from last year. According to the latest J.D. Powers report, hybrid car sales are expected to hit 345,000 units by the end of the year.

Toyota Hybrid Car Sales
Toyota increase sales to 23,123 units sold in the month of July. Toyota sold 16,062 Prius units, an increase of 44.5%. Highlander Hybrid sales were down 56.7% to 1,205 units, while the Camry hybrid was also down 13.8% to 4,329 units. Lexus sold 142 GS 450h and 1,385 RX 400h, an change of -9.6% and 13.5% respectively.

Ford Hybrid Car Sales
Ford Escape and Mariner Hybrid sales combined for 1,578 units. That's a decrease of 23.4%. Altogether, Ford captured 5.5% of the full hybrid marketplace.

Nissan Hybrid Car Sales
Nissan sold 1,131 hybrid Altimas in the month of July. That's 4.0% of the full hybrid market and the first time Nissan broke through the 1,000 mark with their limited sales of the Nissan Altima Hybrid. Nissan sells its only hybrid in just the eight states with California emissions laws.

Honda Hybrid Car Sales
Honda captured the remaining 9.6% of the hybrid marketplace with 2,753 units sold. Honda sold 260 Accord hybrids and 2,493 Civic Hybrids. Both models were down 48.4% and 6.7%, respectively.

GM Hybrid Car Sales
Since GM doesn't break out their hybrid car sales figures, I can't track them.

Hybrid Car Sales, June 2007