Sales Plummet for Once Hot Hybrid Vehicles

[Purveyor]

March. 17, 2009

Sales of fuel sipping hybrid vehicles have tanked.

Last summer when gasoline prices hit record highs auto dealers were charging massive premiums as drivers lined up to buy the suddenly popular Toyota Prius. Honda couldn't keep the Civic hybrid on lots and Chevy dealers had no trouble peddling the Tahoe hybrid.

Today Toyota is offering a 500-dollar rebate on the Prius but has few takers, Honda is giving up two-thousand dollars in cash to anyone willing to buy the Civic hybrid and anyone who takes a Chevy hybrid home could have an extra six-thousand rebate dollars in their pocket.

The "Los Angeles Times" says automakers are now stuck between the proverbial rock and hard spot. They're cranking out fuel thrifty vehicles that drivers clamored for last summer and that lawmakers wanted to see as part of the bailout plan for GM and Chrysler.

Automakers worldwide are still moving full speed ahead with new designs and products that will be in showrooms soon. Honda has a new Insight hybrid arriving at dealers within the next month or so. Toyota has redesigned the Prius and has plans for a sub 20-thousand-dollar hybrid. Chrysler has promised to have eight hybrids or electric vehicles in showrooms within the next few years and GM says 26 of the 33 models it sells in 2015 will run on a combination of gasoline and electricity. Hyundai and Audi will offer their first hybrids to America next year and Ford hopes to offer a 41-mile-per-gallon Fusion in 2010.

MORE... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29735993/

[glowing]

1. The problem is that no one is buying any new cars. There is a huge surplus of cars.

Not having a job or worrying about losing a job is not going get people out to spend money on a car.

[Andy823]

2. I think the problem here is

People are not buying large items, like cars, because those that still have a job, are not sure about the future so they are saving all they can. This is usually a good time of the year for car dealers, with tax refunds coming in, but unless the people feel more secure in their future, they aren't going to be spending large sums on cars, or other big ticket items.

[kestrel91316]

3. You have to have money to buy a car. Nobody has any money.

And banks sure as hell aren't lending.

I sound like my grandmother when she tried to explain about the Great Depression. "Nobody had any money", she said. I couldn't wrap my mind around that. I asked what she meant. She said NOBODY had any money. People didn't, and banks didn't either. So the economy just ground to a halt.

Sounds familiar.

[robdogbucky]

4. Too many

of them were sold here in California, which originally had a HOV exception for hybrids to use those lanes.

Methinks they threw the baby out with the bathwater though.

They started to see too many in those HOV lanes and hence, along with the scofflaws violating w/o HO in their vehicles, crowded the once open diamond lanes and have defeated the incentive to buy them just in order to drive in the commuter lanes. When Cal rescinded the exception to drive in these diamond lanes for hybrid vehicles, sales of same began to plummet. Well before any perceived economic downturn.

robdogbucky