US Hybrid Sales in July Second Highest of 2005

2 August 2005

Hybrids had their second-best sales month of the year in July, with 19,428 total units sold. April remains the month with the highest hybrid sales activity, with 20,974 units sold.

Toyota continued its dominance of the hybrid market. The Prius accounted for 9,691 units; The Highlander Hybrid, in its second month of sales, turned in a continued strong performance with 2,564 units, followed by the Lexus Rx400h with 2,262.

As a percentage of all hybrid sales in the month Toyota’s total of 14,617 hybrids represented 75% of the total US hybrid sales in the month—a slight decline from June’s 79% share.

Honda’s hybrid sales were up 26% from June, with the Civic hybrid leading with 2,329 units. The Accord hybrid followed with 1,376, and the Insight maintained its steady but low sales rate with 68.

Ford’s Escape Hybrid declined slightly from prior months, down to 1,138 units.

Within the automakers, Toyota has the highest percentage of hybrids as a component of total light-duty vehicle sales: 6.7%.

The Prius remains in a class by itself—not a hybrid version of a conventional brand, but one of only two hybrid-only models on the market, the other one being the Honda Insight.

For those models that do represent a mixture of hybrid and non-hybrid models, Toyota still leads, and by some large numbers—25% of the Rx330/Rx400h models that sold in July were the hybrid Rx400h.

And although Ford’s overall Escape hybrid numbers seem exceptionally low, especially as a percentage of total company sales, as a percentage of total Escape model sales, they’re comparatively not as bad: 6.2%. Better than the Accord.