Hybrid Car Review

A new year brings a new record for hybrid car sales. With an increase of 27% over last years, car makers sold 22,392 units in the month of January, 2008. Note that GM does not break out their hybrid car sales, and so their numbers are not included. (Note to GM, please start doing so. There is obviously a lot of interest in hybrid cars and how they are doing in the marketplace.)

As usual, Toyota sold the most hybrids, 18,652 units sold, or 83.3% of the market. It was also a 30.2% increase from last January for the automaker. Prius made up a bulk of their hybrid car sales (over half the market total) with 11,379 units sold, an increase of 37% from last year. Prius has been setting record numbers over the past year, once a limitation was removed on their production. It's possible that the numbers may start matching up with last year's numbers over the next few months, as very little else has changed.

The Toyota Camry Hybrid remains the second most popular hybrid car in America. Toyota sold 3,750 units in January, a 34% increase from last year. The Highlander Hybrid also increased sales by 18% to 2,143 units sold.

Lexus hybrid car sales were down from last year, 62% for the GS 450h and 3% for the RX 400h.

Honda Hybrid sales were down from last year, 2% for the Honda Civic Hybrid and 81% for the retired Honda Accord Hybrid.

Ford Escape/Mariner Hybrid sales were up in January by 19% from last year to 1,474 units. Nissan sold 473 Altima Hybrids in limited sales. Nissan only sells the Altima Hybrid in eight states.