Hybrid Sales Up Again in August, Carried By Clunker Cash and Slow-Growing Acceptance

Nissan Altima hybrid was one of the stars of August, more than tripling sales for the month despite limited availability.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

The federal Cash for Clunkers program may have been good for conventional cars in August, but monthly sales performance was a letdown for hybrids after an explosive July.

Oh, sales of gas-electric cars and SUVs were up last month - a 9.2 percent gain from July, but that pales by comparison to the 35 percent gain the segment recorded in July over June and doesn't stand up well, either, against the 26.6% August increase posted by conventionally powered vehicles (cars and trucks except hybrids).

Overall, however, August 2009 hybrid sales of 38,701 gas-electric cars, SUVS and pickups were up 48.6 percent from 26,044 in August '08 - a significant gain explained in large part by the addition of half a dozen new hybrid models, including the Honda Insight, Ford Fusion and Lexus HS250, that weren't available a year earlier.

By comparison, sales of conventional vehicles were up just 0.5 percent - 1.22 million Vs. 1.21 million - from August '08.

Not Tops

The sluggish performance August wasn't an across-the-board thing. Hybrid sales statistics are knocked cockeyed by the huge market share held by Toyota's Pruis. When it's up the whole hybrid market soars, but when Prius sales fall, as they did in August after a huge July gain, they hold back the hybrid market.

But few models did as well in August as in July, an indication that when fuel costs are soft, as they have been much of the summer, and a program like C4C effectively softens the price of other, conventional vehicles, hybrids still are in second place on most Americans' shopping lists.

(The same can be said about many small cars. Sales of Toyota Motor Corp.'s fuel-efficient Yaris subcompact, for example, fell almost 48 percent although Toyota sales overall were up 6 percent.)

Edmunds.com market data shows that vehicles in the middle of the market, cars such as Ford's Focus and Fusion and Toyota's Corolla and Camry, did best in August.

Steady Growth

The 12-month gain in hybrid sales, though, shows that while the vehicles aren't yet priority buys for most shoppers, the segment of the car-buying population interested in gaining fuel efficiency even when it means paying more for advanced technology has been growing steadily despite the economic downturn.

Hybrid sales have risen every month this year with total sales at 200,609 through the end of August. That's down 14.7 percent from the first eight months of 2008, but compares favorably to a 27 percent decline in conventional vehicle sales for the same period.

On the hybrid front in August, Nissan North America, up 207 percent; Honda Motor Co., up 51.4 percent, and General Motors Corp., up 14.9 percent for the month, were the corporate gainers while Toyota, down 0.4 percent, and Ford Motor Co. down 12.3 percent, were the losers, unable to keep pace with the big gains they scored in July.

Toyota

Toyta's Prius (left) continues to hold sway over the market, with a commanding 48.8 percent share of all hybrid sales last month; Toyota and Lexus hybrids combined accounted for a 62.5 percent market share.

But only one of the company's hybrids sparkled in August a sales of the Lexus RX400h  jumped 28.1 percent for total of 1,754.  

By contrast,sales of the Camry hybrid dropped 15.7 percent to 2,114; Highlander hybrid SUV sales plunged 28,6 percent to 836; and Prius sales were down 1.5 percent to 18,886.

The new entry-level Lexus HS250 added 543 sales of Toyota's hybrid tally while the low volume GS 400h was up 6.6 percent at 48 sales for the month and the almost no-volume GS600h L was down 64.2 percent to just 10 sold.

Honda

The No. Two hybrid company, Honda, posted a decent gain for the month on the strength of its new Insight (right), whose sales were helped by its relatively low price and a spate of hybrid-hunters with 'clunker' trade-ins that cut it by a further $4,500.

Overall, Honda sold 4,943 hybrids in August compared to 3,264 in July.

The Insight accounted for 4,226 sales last month, up 84.1percent from July, while the Civic hybrid's 717 sales represented a 26 percent drop from the prior month.

Ford

The Blue Oval - the only U.S. automaker to post an overall sales gain in July, saw its hybrid sales fall as its conventional Fusion (left), Focus, Escape, Edge, Flex, F-150 pickup and Mercury Mariner models captured buyers' attention - and dollars.

Slight gains by Ford's low-volume Mercury hybrids failed to offset slipping sales of the company's ford-brand models.

While the Mercury Mariner hybrid SUV was up 82.7 percent at 391 sales, its Ford Escape twin was down 26.5 percent for the month, to a total of 1,711; and the Mercury Milan sedans' 8.5 percent gain to 240 sales was nowhere near enough to cover up its Ford Fusion hybrid sedan sibling's 9.1 percent drop to 2,353 sales.

Nissan

With only one hybrid - and that sold in just nine ates - Nissan ought to be an afterthought, but its Altima hybrid sedan has shown surprising strength in the last few months.

Altima hybrid sales more than tripled in August - to 3,164 from 1,030 in July - and were more than seven times the 442 sales posted in August '08.

GM

General Motors Corp. posted the industry's worst sales performance in August, down 20 percent, but fared better with its hybrids.

Although just  a small piece of the GM pie - in fact, the company has the smallest hybrid sales total of the five automakers selling gas-electric models - GM's  Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Saturn hybrids collectively posted a 14.9 percent gain for August.

The Vue Greenline hybrid SUV (right) was the volume leader, up 53.9 percent at 414 sales, followed by the Cadillac Escalade hybrid, up 28.1 percent to 214 sales.

Chevrolet Silverado hybrid pickup sales rose 25 percent to 165; GMC Sierra hybrid pickup sales rose 27.1 percent to 61, and Saturn Aura hybrid sedan sales more than doubled to 65.

GM's only hybrid losers for August were the Chevy Malibu sedan, down 7.4 percent to 441 sales, and the Chevy Tahoe SUV, down 12.6 percent to 222.  The Tahoe's GMC Yukon sibling, though, saw sales rise 7.7 percent to 126.

Smaller Pond

Hybrids accounted for 3.07 percent of all August passenger vehicle sales, their third-best market share since the first gas-electric model - the first-generation Honda Insight - was sold in the U.S. at the end of 1999.

But that market share comes in a shrunken market, and the sales volume of just under 39,000 remains far below the best-ever month of May, 2007, when 45,095 hybrids (a 2.9 percent market share back then) were sold in the U.S.

        Hybrid Sales
August 2009; July 2009; August 2008

Ford
Ford Escape - 1,711; 2,329; 1,155.
Mercury Mariner - 391; 214; 183.
Ford Fusion - 2,353; 2,589; NA.
Mercury Milan - 240; 221; NA .

GM
Chevrolet Malibu - 441, 476; 388.
Chevrolet Silverado - 165; 132; NA.
GMC Sierra - 61; 48; NA.
Chevrolet Tahoe - 222; 254; 530.
GMC Yukon - 126; 117; 267.
Cadillac Escalade - 214; 167; NA.
Saturn Aura - 65; 24; 26.
Saturn Vue Greenline - 414; 269; 417.

Honda
Civic - 717; 969; 3,105.
Insight - 4,226; 2,295; NA .

Nissan
Altima - 3,164; 1,030; 442 .

Toyota
Lexus HS250 - 543; NA; NA.
Lexus GS 460h - 48; 45; 35.
Lexus LS 600h L - 10; 28; 71
Lexus RX 450h - 1,754; 1,369; 1,277.
Toyota Camry - 2,114; 2,509; 3,456.
Toyota Highlander - 836; 1,171; 1,227.
Toyota Prius - 18,886; 19,173; 13,463.

Posted by

John O'Dell September 2, 2009, 3:00 AM

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