Americans Want More Fuel-Efficient Cars, US Hybrids Up 48%
Total US hybrid sales jumped 48.6% in August from last August, buoyed up by Cash for Clunkers.
We Americans did the right patriotic thing with our clunker money last month, it turns out. We bought more American. And we bought more hybrid cars. Ford was the big winner, making a big dent in Toyota’s hybrid sales.
Consumer reports tells us that 80% would rather buy US cars and 46% of us now prefer fuel efficient cars.
- » See also: Aptera’s Troubles: Get the Full, Inside Story Here
- » Get Gas 2.0 by RSS or sign up by email.
We’re not so stupid, after all. After our experience with the run up in gas prices last summer, we jumped at the chance to own a gas sipper with Cash for Clunkers. We had already been buying 13.8% fewer gas guzzling trucks and 15.6% more gas sipper cars over this last year per Green Car Congress.
Even before Cash for Clunkers, ever since the gas shocks last summer, we have been buying more fuel efficient cars. Most of us don’t need trucks. And hybrids as percentages of sales had already been gaining steadily since the gas shocks last year, (although sales generally were few till the incentives last month). For example, the change in the percentage of hybrids sold in August had merely drifted up 9.2% from the month before Cash for Clunkers.
It appears that fuel economy matters more to us now. For 46% of us, and for secondhand car buyers: 55% fuel efficiency is in our top three factors determining our choice.
Interestingly, “environmentally friendly” (which fuel efficiency equates to) is less often cited: only 13%.
Full data after the jump:
“Interestingly, “environmentally friendly” (which fuel efficiency equates to) is less often cited: only 13%.”
People vote with their pocketbooks. “Fuel efficiency” means “money stays in my pocket”, while “environmentally friendly” is
more abstract and can bring to mind environmental extremism.
True, and in the long run they are both “money stays in my pocket” issues, actually, as the costs of climate change will eventually hit us so hard in the pocketbook that we might not be able to afford FEMA.
Already property insurance costs for the East Coast and Florida is up something like 5-fold.
But for next month, it is just “how to get to work cheaper”.
What about tax incentives? How much do they weigh into this?
That also falls in with “keep more cash in my pocket”…
Honestly, if it was just myself in my household then I’d have a hybrid of some sort.
“Already property insurance costs for the East Coast and Florida is up something like 5-fold.”
That’s the way it should be, though. People on/near the coast should pay considerably more for insurance as it is a higher risk area (Frankly, I don’t know why any insurance company would insure a house anywhere on the gulf coast without making the yearly premium equal to something like 1/10 the value of the home). The rising premiums are the result of a correction of a wrong that has been going on for a while: spreading the cost of high-risk areas to those in lower-risk (and less desireable) areas.
I’m still waiting on an effective hybrid truck.
100% of torque at 0 RPM would have huge ramifications for towing capacity.
Please explain how it is possible to have “All respondents” and “New Car Buyers” with the same percentages and then have “Used Car Only Buyers” with a different percentage. This is grade school math.