http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009...ed-us-sal.html

Ordinarily looking at these low numbers would be depressing except January was also one of the worst months on record for auto sales. If there is a silver lining, hybrids came in at ~2.3% of all vehicle sales, a record for January. The highest percentage was ~3.2% in April 2008.

Bob Wilson

 

It looks like Nissan Altima Hybrid sales were ok. I wish Nissan would realize that they have a great car that many more folks would buy if they would only sell it in all 50 states.

 

Hi,

I took the Green Car Congress January hybrid sales data and plotted the sales quantities versus manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP) and hybrid quality, the City MPG:

To some extent, the sales volume determines the MSRP cost but vehicle hybrid performance is also important to sales success. I have chosen to use the City mileage as the quality of a vehicle's hybrid system. Sure, larger vehicles have a weight problem that drives their City performance down but that is where their designers chose to spend their time and effort.

The most successful sales models in the Toyota and Lexus families both have relatively good City performance and with larger sales, a lower cost (begging a which came first question.) Also, the data grouping suggests there are two groups of hybrids:

• Working - Toyota, Ford and Honda
• Luxury - GM, Lexus, Chrysler

This begins to support a hypothesis of hybrid ownership proposed by "CNW Marketing" and reflective of the luxury approach:There is another, larger group, the working hybrid owners:These represent extreme ends of hybrid ownership and there is some float as buyers have the freedom to choose which to buy. It is just each buyer approaches the problem with a different set of values and clever manufacturers offer products and values to all buyers. After all, the buyers have 'the green.'

Bob Wilson

 

Sometimes we have a tendency to look just at hybrids without paying attention to the larger car market. So I combined the top 10 selling gas vehicles to generate this chart:

This data suggests:

• Prius is in the mainstream - the quantity and price puts the Prius in the same group as ordinary gas vehicles.
• Honda big-Insight - at $20k and 40 MPG, has a good chance of joining the ordinary gas vehicles. It is less of a Prius killer as just another threat to the Corolla, Civics and other small sedans.
• Ford Fusion - at $27k and 40 MPG(?), will be in the working hybrid group. This is not a bad place to be but it also gives an idea of the likely volume.
• Pickup hybrid - first $20k, 25 MPG pickup will clean house. A hydraulic hybrid pickup would be an earth shaker and pretty well be the end game.

This is pure speculation, a day-dream, but I could see taking a bottom of the line, rear-drive, Ford or Chevy pickup. Then swap out the front suspension with front wheel drive wheels connected to computer controlled, hydraulic motors connected to a carbon-fiber wrapped, pressure tank.

It only has to handle braking from say 55-65 mph, a single shot. Then during acceleration, power the front wheels to help resume speed while off-loading the engine. This could be a very clever, hybrid solution for pickup trucks and quite affordable.

Bob Wilson