Shift In US Auto-Buying Patterns? 36,000 EVs Sold 1-6/13, But 298,000 Hybrids

[hatrack]

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Results have, so far, fallen way short of expectations. Only about 36,000 battery-powered vehicles were sold this year through July, according to the auto research site Edmunds.com. And many of those sales were spurred by heavy discounts from car companies desperate to move electric models off the lot.

But for hybrid cars, it has been a different story. Automakers have sold about 298,000 hybrids, which alternately run on gasoline engines and battery power, so far this year. And while electric vehicles may be considered greener and more glamorous, hybrids have quietly entered the mainstream of the American auto market.

Today, more than 40 conventional hybrid models are available, from mass-market automakers like Toyota and Ford to luxury brands like BMW and Mercedes. Hybrids account for about 3 percent of overall industry sales, with the market-leading Toyota Prius cracking the Top 10 list of best-selling passenger cars.

By contrast, automakers offer only about a dozen all-electric cars or plug-in models — which run on battery power with assistance from a gasoline engine — although more are on the way. Industry analysts say that hybrid models are now showing up on the shopping lists of a broad range of consumers. “Conventional hybrids are mainstream now,” said John O’Dell, the green-car editor at Edmunds. “You can envision almost anyone buying one.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/business/a-hankering-for-hybrids.html?hp&_r=0

[Travis_0004]

1. For most people, electric cars just don't work well enough yet

I have some errands to run today, I'll probably drive 80-90 miles, which is out of the range of most all electric cars. If I was married, then I could see possibly having a small electric car, and a second gasoline powered car. Then if me or my wife needed to driver further, they could take that car.

In the future, I assume they will figure out of to charge batteries much quicker, then it won't be an issue. You could pull up to a 'gas station', and charge a battery in about 10 minutes, then the technology will be more viable.

[kristopher]

2. That's why the electric drive "series hybrid" was developed.

Not to be overly picky, but its important to point out that would more appropriately be, "For most people battery only cars just don't have enough range yet."

A car with a gasoline engine that mechanically propels the car and uses a battery for boosting performance - like the original Prius - is a parallel hybrid. Know commonly as a Hybrid.

A car with propulsion provided by electric motor/s but that carries a small onboard gasoline/diesel engine to run the electric motor on a generator after the batteries are depleted - is a series hybrid, also known as a Plug In Hybrid Electric Vehicle or PHEV.

And of course a car propelled by an electric motor and batteries exclusively is an Electric Vehicle.

I forget the exact number but the owner of the first PHEV reported that after about 18 months, counting only the gasoline used and ignoring the amount of power provided by plugging the car in to charge the batteries, he'd gotten something like 1500 miles to the gallon. That, of course, isn't a measure of how efficiently the vehicle uses energy. Rather it is a demonstration of how often they had needed to resort to using the back up engine to generate electricity.

The drawback really is cost, not so much range.