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JD Power Projects Record US Sales for Hybrids in 2007
2 August 2007
Hybrid vehicles are on course to achieve record sales in the US in 2007, increasing by 35% compared with 2006, according to the JD Power and Associates 2007 US Hybrid Vehicle Forecast Second Quarter Update.
According to the report, an estimated 187,000 hybrid vehicles were sold in the US market through the first half of 2007, accounting for 2.3% of the total US new light-vehicle market through June. While sales of hybrid vehicles are projected to decline slightly in the second half of the year, the market is still on track to sell 345,000 hybrids in 2007—a 35% increase from the 256,000 hybrids sold in 2006.
High gas prices during the first half of 2007, coupled with automakers lowering the price premium for most hybrid models, have given the hybrid market a boost.
—Mike Omotoso, JD Power and Associates
The Toyota Prius continues to be the most popular hybrid model, selling 94,503 units through June 2007 and representing 50.6% of all new hybrid vehicles sold in the US market in 2007. Prius sales were bolstered earlier this year when Toyota began offering incentives up to $2,000 to entice customers.
Toyota realized that they had to offer incentives for the Prius to offset the decrease in the federal tax break, which decreased from more than $3,000 in 2006 to less than $1,000 in 2007. The incentives helped Toyota maintain a strong sales pace for the Prius.
—Mike Omotoso
Despite the entry of nine new hybrid vehicle models in the market in 2007—seven of which are expected to go on sale between July and December—the Prius is projected to continue as the sales leader among hybrid vehicles during the next few years.
Competition in the hybrid segment is projected to intensify further in the coming years. According to the report, there will be as many as 65 hybrid models—28 cars and 37 light trucks—in the market by 2010, with sales expected to reach nearly 775,000 units, or 4.6% of the total US new light-duty vehicle market.
August 2, 2007 in Hybrids, Sales | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBack (0)
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Those forecasts from JD Powers are pretty worthless. Back in 2005 they made the following statement:
"Despite the significant growth in the number of models and annual sales over the next five years, we anticipate hybrid market share to reach a plateau of approximately 3 percent near the end of the decade."
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/02/jd_power_hybrid.html
Posted by: Theo | Aug 2, 2007 10:19:48 AM
Yes, shame on JD powers for not predicting Hurricane Katrina and further turmoil in the mideast bringing oil to nearly $80/barrel from the sub $50/barrel price at the time...so worthless. Theo, since you knew of these things, why didn't you warn everybody?
Posted by: Patrick | Aug 2, 2007 10:56:29 AM
Yes, shame on JD powers for not predicting Hurricane Katrina and further turmoil in the mideast bringing oil to nearly $80/barrel from the sub $50/barrel price at the time...so worthless. Theo, since you knew of these things, why didn't you warn everybody?
It's hard to predict further turmoil in the Middle East with Bush in charge? I think you need to change your sense of what's difficult.
Posted by: jack | Aug 2, 2007 11:04:27 AM
Considering they predicted a 3% market share and we're still at 2.3%, they're not wrong yet...
Posted by: Travis Rassat | Aug 2, 2007 11:19:01 AM
Yes JD Power said that Hybrids will reach 3.0 % in 2010.
But last year Hybrids had 1.6 % share, this year so far is 2.3 %,
next year it could cross 3.0 %. So they are off by 2 years.
What is important here is the price of vehicle and gas price.
Recently Toyota reduced price of Prius by 1,200 by removing
some extras. Also GM is coming with more models.
All this could help Hybrids capture 5 % by 2010. Another
important is Non-Hybrids sales have actually declined this
year and will accelerate next year.
Toyota has sold 23,123 units and Honda - 2,753 units in Jul-2007.
Prius 16,062
Camry 4,329
Highlander 1205
Rx400 1385
GS4560 142
Total 23,123
Accord 260
Civic 2493
Total 2753
Posted by: Max Reid | Aug 2, 2007 12:13:02 PM
Well then jack,
Make some predictions based solely on Bush being in office...
Let us hear it! I'm waiting.
Predictions for the end of year 2008. With only one year left it should be extremely easy.
Give me your predictions for price of oil, Auto industry, status of Iran,Iraq,Israel,Syria,Saudi Arabia, Libya, India & Pakistan and the breakdown for each segment of vehicle sold in the US. I'll be waiting.
Posted by: Patrick | Aug 2, 2007 1:06:58 PM
Make some predictions based solely on Bush being in office... Predictions for the end of year 2008. With only one year left it should be extremely easy. Give me your predictions for price of oil, Auto industry, status of Iran,Iraq,Israel,Syria,Saudi Arabia, Libya, India & Pakistan and the breakdown for each segment of vehicle sold in the US. I'll be waiting.
Oh, are you upset that I said something slightly mean about your hero? That must be upsetting.
Your premise is that it would have been impossible to predict in 2005 that the Middle East would still be a mess right now. Now all of a sudden you trollishly request specific predictions for specific places.
Here's my prediction - natural gas, oil and gasoline prices will remain very high for the remainder of Bush's term and that the Middle East will remain a major mess. We will continue to hear about the poor refiners not able to make their refineries work, while they rake in record profits. My other prediction is that people who worship the "strong man" will continue to make excuses for the worst presidency in US history until their dying day.
I also predict a massive sigh of relief from the 6.5 billion inhabitants of Earth come January 20, 2009.
Lookie there - I even pinned my prediction to an actual date. I'm so psychic.
Posted by: jack | Aug 2, 2007 1:15:10 PM
Amen!
Now as for the Hybrid sales, they'd sell more if they built a greater variety of them and made them plug-in and make them cheaper. Some more incentives and tax credits would help, as well as to begin converting some existing models to hybrid only, starting with SUV's. There are very few vehicle on the road that wouldn't benefit from being a hybrid in either performance or fuel mileage.
Posted by: Elliot | Aug 2, 2007 8:56:11 PM
Make that BOTH performance and fuel mileage.
Posted by: Elliot | Aug 2, 2007 8:56:53 PM
That JD Power prediction that hybrids would plateau at 3% used some starkly pessimistic assumptions about how, for instance, hybrid cost premiums would not come down with volume, experience, and technology advance. Still the level we're at is pathetically poor. Basic economic analysis tells you that a well-designed hybrid feature will very easily pay for itself over the life of the car on gasoline savings alone. The hybrid should be the standard car. (On the way to PHEV.) The problem is that the market evidently demands a payback several times faster.
The reason is twofold. One is that the information about the efficiency of a car generally gets lost in the muddle at resale time, so the value does, and new car buyers anticipate this. They want payback during their term of ownership of an average 3 years or so because they don't expect to see resale value. This despite the fact that hybrid efficiency is a rare part of the car's value that shouldn't deteriorate significantly and may well rise. The second reason is that new car buyers are not sensitive to the cost of gas, although used car buyers are, but the latter just have to take as is the fleet that the new car buyers chose and put on the used market. An elite 20% choose for everyone else, more or less.
First solution: require all cars to have permanent labeling of the EPA efficiency rating on the car where the used car shopper will see it before he falls in love with the car, and/or require used car dealers to post it in the window just like with new cars (it can be printed off the government web site). Better yet the printout includes a table of projected costs for ten years' gasoline (shift a decimal in your head for annual) at each of three or so miles-per-year steps, and then each added to the asking price of the car, as a perspective. With a reminder that peak oil, looming global warming response and military uncertainties mean there's a whole lot more upside risk than downside possibility (buying a gas-dependent car is like selling stock short). Now the value of the hybrid drive will carry forward and new car buyers will soon know it.
Second solution: rather than conventional subsidies, the government should provide easy financing for the hybrid feature, sort of like a second TD, which you don't have to make payments on for maybe four years. By that time you can probably pay it off just from the gasoline savings if you kept that money. The buyer has a pretty easy decision because he doesn't have to pay any extra for hybrid at time of purchase. The US federal government has a much lower cost of capital than consumers do, and in fact the program would help it keep that cost down by improving its trade balance and reducing military costs. A fleet of some 50% hybrids could rapidly double in size again if the price of oil shot up, that would cut our consumption, fighting back against the price jump; this prospect amounts to elasticity introduced to the oil market. Which in turn helps lower costs, political tensions, uncertainty, political food fights and other problems.
Third solution: have the government seriously promote the introduction of hybrid drive systems as aftermarket add-ons, not just features for new cars. Require Detroit to make its cars friendly to such future upgrades.
If basic changes like this are put into the market by the government to encourage efficiency buying like they really wanted it, JD Power's predictions will get blown out of the water for hybrids. Similar for PHEVs and other green cars.
Posted by: P Schager | Aug 3, 2007 4:41:00 AM
I agree with jack. The middle east was a bastion of peace, serenity, and brotherly fellowship until Bush stole the presidency in 2000. I'm sure if jack's candidate wins in 08, the middle east will return to peaceful, pluralistic democracy within months, and oil will be back down to $11/barrel.
Posted by: Bob Bastard | Aug 3, 2007 6:59:07 AM
I agree with jack. The middle east was a bastion of peace, serenity, and brotherly fellowship until Bush stole the presidency in 2000. I'm sure if jack's candidate wins in 08, the middle east will return to peaceful, pluralistic democracy within months, and oil will be back down to $11/barrel.
You poor thing. Your hero has worse approval ratings than Tricky Dick. That must be rough on your ego.
Oil was $10/barrel when Clinton was in office, and I don't recall the Twin Towers coming down on his watch, nor launching a pre-emptive war against a Middle Eastern country and getting bogged down there for many years, costing the lives of thousands and hundreds of billions of dollars. I also don't recall fossil fuel prices going up 3-6 fold and having to deal with color-coded fear-mongering. Amazing how we all got along.
So, basically you're admitting Bush is a liar and a fraud when he told us they'd be throwing rose petals at soldiers' feet and that democracy would flourish. Good to see that. There's hope for you, trollie.
Posted by: jack | Aug 3, 2007 7:26:30 AM
Nice straw man there, jack. Where did I say that Bush is my hero? If you want my opinion on Bush, I'll give it to you. I think he is the worst president we've had in some time, at least since Jimmy Carter. But I don't blame either him or Carter for the issues in the middle east, which were around long before either of them, and will still exist long after Bush is gone. What I do blame Carter for, as well as every president who followed him, including (and especially) the current Bush, is not doing more to help the world reduce its dependence on energy coming from such an unstable part of the planet. I also take issue to your oversimplified and ethnocentric view of politics which attempts to lay the responsibility of wellbeing for the entire planet squarely on the shoulders of the President of the United States (implying that the rest of the planet are just helpless children who can only react to his policies.) Also, if you think that $10/barrel oil and $0.79/gallon gasoline under the Clinton administration are things for which he should be proud, then you are suckling even harder from the bosom of the Democratic party than I initially suspected. The biggest challenges (global warming, energy [in]dependence, and "the clash of cultures") that are facing our society today shouldn't be Republican or Democratic issues, but somehow, people like you and Rush Limbaugh seem to have a way of pulling debate on everything back into this silly little bilateral Clinton vs. Bush paradigm.
Posted by: Bob Bastard | Aug 3, 2007 8:46:19 AM
Same old same old...
Posted by: jack | Aug 3, 2007 8:56:59 AM
Well said, Bob B. It's childish to put a label on somebody when you disagree with them. It's an indication that someone doesn't have an open mind, so they resort to name-calling when they don't have an actual argument.
I wish everybody would stick to the issues ... I like reading diverse opinions, even when I don't agree. But the childish bickering gets old fast.
Posted by: JamesEE | Aug 3, 2007 11:00:54 AM
I love people who come in and cry about people not having a solid argument, yet offer nothing but whining themselves.
Way to stand by the BB troll, smart guy.
Posted by: jack | Aug 3, 2007 12:55:14 PM
I'm sure if jack's candidate wins in 08, the middle east will return to peaceful, pluralistic democracy within months, and oil will be back down to $11/barrel.
Don't be a dope. No one expects the middle east to be peaceful for a long time, now that Bush has destroyed Iraq. We'll probably be there for a generation as a result of the Republican War. I think this outcome is exactly what some people wanted. (Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz et al.)
Posted by: George | Aug 4, 2007 10:07:32 PM
...even Clinton was not that peaceful as some people may belive. He commanded missle attackes against suspected criminels in Afghanistan and elsewhere which killed peaceful people but not the criminals. Imagine, the Federal Government would bombard your neighbourhood and accidently kill your kids coming from school because of suspected criminals in the vicinity. What would you do?
Beside from that kind of policy making, the Federal Government sent troops to Iraq to invade this country and secure "cheap" oil reserves for a time to come. Unfortunatly for them, the Iraq population as a whole has not shown any sign to collaborate with the invader as wished. So, not 30.000 occupational (or call in allied) American troops have to stay in Iraq but more than 100.000.
It remains to be seen, how long the American taxpayer shoulder the burden? (The people, that pay the taxes but do not make the profits out of the Iraq adventure)
About this JD Power calculation: They projected a tendency and everyone who studied Economics know that there are some inponderableness.
Posted by: Michel | Aug 7, 2007 3:53:15 AM
The price of maintaining military presence near major oil producers should be paid for by an oil tax, to reflect the true "cost" of obtaining oil.
Putting aside cars for a moment, the US generates near 1,000,000 MegaWatts foruse throughout the year. A modern windmill will generate 5MWatts at a cost of ~$5M.
So 200,000 windmills would generate enough electricity for all of the US at a cost of ~$1 Trillion dollars - which is pretty close to the cost of this recent Iraq war. True, maintenance costs are not included nor infrastructure upgrades to get the electricity to the grid from remote sites, and the issue of load balancing.
But you get the picture. Oil costs a lot more than the price per barrel we see quoted as ~60-80 per barrel. A level playing field would put us on a faster track to get off the oil addiction.
Once we do this, plug-in hybrids become very attractive.
Posted by: Tom | Aug 9, 2007 2:36:02 PM
