February 2011 Dashboard: Hybrid Sales Outpace Growing Auto Market
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The HybridCars.com monthly sales dashboard is a collaboration of HybridCars.com and Baum & Associates, a Michigan-based market research firm focusing on automotive issues including the hybrid and electric vehicle market.
Renewed consumer interest in buying cars and a jump in gas prices combined to revive hybrid sales in February. The hybrid market is up 39 percent from a year ago, compared to an annual jump of 27.2 percent for the overall car market. As usual, the Toyota Prius dominated hybrid sales, tallying 13,539 sales—a 70 percent jump compared to last February (when Toyota was in the midst of its public relations nightmare over safety issues.) Year-to-date hybrid sales increased by 25 percent, while Toyota’s hybrid sales increased by 29 percent.
The Prius stands alone as the clear leader in hybrid sales—while the rest of the market divides between the modest sellers from Ford and Honda, and the “me too” set of low-sellers from General Motors and various German automakers. Ford saw decent gains with the Fusion Hybrid and Escape Hybrid compared to last month—42 percent and 53 percent hikes respectively—while Honda holds firm to its second-place position for hybrids. That’s despite modest Honda Civic Hybrid sales, as the automaker phased out the current model and prepares to bring in a redesigned version with improved lithium ion batteries.
The rise in hybrid sales compared to overall market is interesting because the growth in general auto sales was driven by at least two factors: (1) the growth in the economy; and (2) the growth in incentives. These incentives were of course focused on a much broader base of vehicles than the hybrid market, thus putting the hybrids at a modest disadvantage. Nonetheless, hybrid growth exceeded the overall market, indicating the strength of consumer interest in gas-electric vehicles.