If you thought that hybrid cars were immune from the effects of the credit crunch, then think again. Reported sales of hybrids in the USA slumped by 8.9 per cent in September compared to September 2007 – its lowest sales volume in three years.
Of course compared to the rest of the industry hybrid cars still fared comparatively well with overall sales of light duty vehicles falling by 26.6 per cent year-on-year. However, the news will be of little consolation to the manufacturers which saw sales fall across the board:
Toyota - Sales of the Prius fell by 13 per cent to 10,873 while sales of the Camry hybrid were down 33.6 per cent to 2,785 units year-on-year. Meanwhile sales of the Highlander Hybrid bucked the trend rising to 921 units from 193 the previous year, despite the fact that total Highlander sales dropped by 30 per cent.
Toyota’s luxury division Lexus suffered similar falls. The Lexus Rx400h saw a drop of 24 per cent with 744 units sold. Meanwhile, the high-end LS 600h sold just 47 units – that’s a fall of 76 per cent compared to September 2007.
Honda - Sales of the Honda Civic Hybrid fell slightly by 3.4 per cent to 2,020 units.
Ford - Sales of both the Escape and Mariner hybrids have fallen by 40 per cent to 990 units. By contrast, total Escape and Mariner sales were down by just 20 per cent.
Nissan - There were 470 units of the Altima hybrid sold – that’s down 38 per cent compared to the previous year.
General Motors – The two-mode hybrid Tahoe, Yukon and Escalade SUVs sold 1,100 units which represented 8.8 per cent of the total sales of the three vehicles combined. Meanwhile the Saturn VUE Hybrid sold just 443 units and the Malibu Hybrid 382 units. The Saturn Aura was the slowest seller with just 31 units sold – that’s just 0.5 per cent of all Aura sales.
