Hybrid sales look like they surged in March

Lol, how can selling 0 ML450's be a 27% improvement for Mercedes?

 

Fusion, C-max, Accord as well as ESh and GSh should all help the market share go over 4% at some point this year.

Are there any other hybrids that we know off, coming in next 6 months or so? I think Rav4 is potentially big seller, but that wont be out until next year.

For more than 5%, Ford and Honda need to start selling a lot more hybrids, in March 79% of hybrid sales were Toyota/Lexus and thats really too much. There needs to be competition.

 

Fusion sales are disappointing. The 2013 model should do better.

 

The situation with Toyota being so dominant is a little crazy and disturbing.

Honda won't sell many hybrids. Insight and CR-Z are toast. HCH not well, but not sure why.

Ford still running commercials with baldy talking about Fusion hybrid getting 3 times the fuel economy of something else. Guess he's referring to his F-150.

Funny, that Andriotis lady mistakenly referred to 'hybrid' sales under 30k units .... little did she know that number describes the Prius family which btw was ...

#6 of all car,trucks, SUV for March 2012

It was

F series
Silverado
Camry
Altima
CR-V
Prius

...and so on

 

Camry hybrid out sold the best selling Diesel model (Jetta). It more than doubled the Passet TDI. Sonata hybrid pretty much tied with Passet TDI.

 

i think in reality, with hybrid sales going into mainstream, with more and more models coming out, people are/will not chosing hybrids just to buy hybrid, they will buy it because they like Camry, and the like efficient Camry (hybrid)... just like they like Sonata and will like hybrid one, etc, etc.

Very much like diesels in Europe... you dont buy Passat to buy a diesel in Europe, every car has a diesel optionS, you buy it because you like Passat.

So in reality, buyers buying Camry Hybrid are not going to cross shop it with hybrids only, they are cross shopping it with every other car in the price range.

No matter how nice Camry Hybrid or Fusion Hybrid are, not everyone will want Camry or Fusion.

and this is why i keep nagging about investment - if you are going to invest seriously into hybrids and ev's, then you will do a lot of R&D yourself, and that will ultimately lower the price of your product and make you able to compete with Toyota.

If this situation with 80% hybrids being Toyota continues, it will actually stall innovation as Toyota will not be motivated to spend a lot of money on new technologies but it will continue milking what they got.

So thats why we need everyone spending money on research and not buying off the shelf products.

 

Add to that the bad publicity from that lady who won the small-claims court suit against Honda for the poor performance of her HCH, plus the drubbing from the press on the quality of the latest generation of Civics, the HCH has become the laughingstock of hybrids.

Honda is moving towards a 2-motor ECVT (planetary gearset?) full-hybrid system for their upcoming Accord PHV, which would be a step in the right direction. All they have to do is adapt that system into the Civic and make it affordable, then Honda might have something that can actually hope to challenge the Prius.

 

More related articles:
Toyota Prius Hybrid Sales Drive Asian Carmakers

Auto Sales - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com