Americans Want More Fuel-Efficient Cars, US Hybrids Up 48%

Susan Kraoremer, September 8th, 2009, Gas2.org

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.

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%.

Tags: buying_patterns, hybrids, preferences

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dr. Paul A. Curto on September 9, 2009 at 4:27pm: Price rules, not fuel economy. If a typical vehicle gets 40MPG vs 20MPG, its lifetime cost of fuel over 100K miles differs by the cost of 2500 gallons of gas. At most, this is $10,000. Richer people still buy the $30k car vs. the more fuel efficient $20k car because of its value as a status symbol, but the majority of the poorer folk will pay for the lesser vehicle because it is cheaper. If the auto maker would make better quality, highly efficient cars at the lower price, people will buy them.

Note also the utter failure of US auto sales in this category. Laughable.

The Mini Cooper still retails under $20k, and gets 36MPG in the US. They can't keep them in stock. The Mini Cooper D gets 74MPG and cannot be sold in the US. Why? They can't stock the demand for the 36MPG version!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by W. Dan Chance on September 10, 2009 at 2:24pm: Deplorable. Still I was glad to see the preference for efficiency in the cars bought during the cash for clunkers campaign.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kevin Espeseth on September 10, 2009 at 11:10pm: If nobody else has said it, "Thanks for the posts, Dan." Good information...

While we are here, you may want to rent "Tucker, A man and His Dream" (about the Tucker auto company of the '40's, and the US auto industry/government); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by W. Dan Chance on September 11, 2009 at 10:37am: Is "Tucker..." the movie that was on TV? If so, I've seen it. It was a great movie and so easy to believe in view of what GM did to its own EV-1. God! How could they be that stupid and now they are doing it again with the VOLT.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by SJC on September 12, 2009 at 7:37am: My neighbor traded an old gas guzzling Ford van for a Honda Civic. While I would prefer that people buy U.S. models, there are few out there that get the mileage and have the appeal of the Civic. It is good that his old van is not still on the road polluting and gas guzzling and the dealers got some business. Maybe 10 years after the Partnership for New Generation Vehicles (PNGV) program brought us 3 U.S. made sedan prototypes that got 70 mpg, the U.S. auto makers will finally get the idea.; ▶ Reply to This