I would like to suggest that one of the reasons for relatively flat hybrid sales is the successful launch of new high-efficency sub-compacts like the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, Nissan Versa, etc. Frankly, overall fleet eficiency is more important than hybrid sales.

The main reason for the decrease in Oct Hybrid sales is Toyota Hybrids (the largest segment of the market) are now only eligible for 50% of their previous Federal Tax Credits.

What is going to happen to Toyota's hybrid market share in 6 months when no Federal Tax Credits are available? I bet Honda will sell a lot more Hybrid Civics and Toyota Priuses will just be sitting on dealer's lots.

Toyota will need to either cut prices or come out with something new, perhaps a "plug-in" hybrid at the same price to keep up the sales momentum.

Toyota pricing is already down. Local dealers here in Maryland are offering small discounts to MSRP. As supply builds pricing will slowly fall. Toyota will make the same amount of money but the dealers will no longer be able to sell each and every Prius at MSRP . Discounts are on some dealers websites of $200-$500 and I have heard of $1000 of MSRP on less popular Prius packages. That is not as much as the tax credit but its not too bad.

Andrey:

That report is junk. Their metric is simple to understand: total energy required divided by miles driven. Here's the obvious problem: they claim that the vehicles will be driven (on average) this number of miles:

Hummer H1: 379,000 miles -- $3.505 / mile
Hummer H2: 197,000 miles -- $3.027 / mile
Hummer H3: 207,000 miles -- $1.949 / mile
Escalade ESV: 234,000 miles -- $3.197 / mile
Accord Hybrid: 117,000 miles -- $3.295 / mile
Civic Hybrid: 113,000 miles -- $3.238 / mile
Prius: 109,000 miles -- $3.249 / mile

Now, as every grade school arithmetic student knows, if you double the denominator, you cut in half the value of the fraction.

So the question is: do you believe these lifetime mileage numbers? I don't. I'd expect to see the hybrids to be much closer to 200,000 miles, and the SUVs to be much closer to 100,000 miles. Why? Well, The more miles you drive, the better a deal the hybrid is -- which induces those with longer commutes to drive them in the first place. Conversely, SUVs with low mileage may be fashionable, but tend to be avoided by those who have to drive many miles if a more efficient choice is available.

So, if like me, you think that it isn't unreasonable to increase the lifetime mileage of the hybrids by 100% and reduce the lifetime mileage of the SUVs by 50%, we get the following costs per mile -- taking into account the different amounts of gasoline required to drive the different mileage:

H1: $6.761 / mile
H2: $5.853 / mile
H3: $3.711 / mile
Escalade ESV: $6.199 / mile
Accord Hybrid: $1.702 / mile
Civic Hybrid: $1.657 / mile
Prius Hybrid: $1.664 / mile

So, maybe you disagree with cutting the mileage of SUVs in half and doubling the hybrids. I'd expect that, on average, the mileage of the SUVs is less than that of the hybrids. By how much? Hard to say. But, even if you don't -- would you concede that the mileage should be about the same? If so, than simply compare the costs of my hybrid calculations with the initial costs of the SUVs, and the hybrids are still well below the SUV values.

The fact is, this "study" (a 475 page Microsoft Word document) wasn't done by scientists or engineers. It was done by a marketing department -- a firm called CNW Marketing Research. The "study" is crap. Therefore, "your word"* is crap.

* Ironically, "your word" is your words. Check out Posted by: Andrey | Nov 5, 2006 5:31:42 AM if you don't believe me.

Note that these ignore the cost of fuel -- by including the cost of fuel,

^ Disregard the line starting with 'Note that...'. That was an old cut/paste that weaseled its way in. The numbers I gave do include the cost of fuel, based on the data from the report itself.

It's interesting to see the Toyota hybrid sales numbers are down. I wonder if it's just a hiccup in the sales for this month, or is this a result of more choice and lower tax credits and lower gas prices adding up to reduced sales for the Prius and other Toyota hybrids? I saw a story on the lower lot times for the Prius at USAToday as well.

Or is the hiccup due to the really high demand just before the full tax credit expiring last month? In other words, some buyers who would have bought this month ran out and bought early just to get the full credit, leading to a 'shortfall' this month? If that's true, then sales could pick up again in November/December.

Stomv:

Somehow you misunderstood my posts. I was claiming that “the study” was crap even without lengthy calculations. There is no way Hummer is more cost effective then Prius. As for Prius useful life, here in Vancouver couple of hundreds of Priuses are extensively used for taxi service. They are working 24/7 and during 3 years useful life are ticking amazing million kilometers without reliability problems.

I am no a smart engineer or have a lot of techno background, just a consumer who wants to use less oil. Why are there no flex fuel hybrids? Obviously why not a plug in flex fuel hybrids? WHy not the Ford escape of ford fusion in this manner?

someone asked about where the energy comes from in electric cars. in some cases it may be solar, wind (which is another form of solar), tidal, &c, but in most cases it is fossil fuel (natural gas, fuel oil, coal), the same as the engine in most cars and hybrids. a rough comparison of the actual fossil fuel usage (e.g. per mile) can be realized by comparing the thermal efficiency. The thermal efficiency of an internal combustion automotive engine is 25-30%. The maximum thermal efficiency of a steam turbine cycle (even combined cycle i.e. gas turbine with exhaust gass producing power via steam) is about 40%. The generator , transmission, and motor combined efficiency is probably 90-95% or more and can be ignored i.e. treated as 100%.

Hi I am a student at Riverdale School in New Jersy and I was wondering if you can send me a model or any other materials for my science fair project.I am doing a project about electric cars.

Thank you for your time