Greenest Car-Shoppers Gather on West Coast

We know that judging a city’s eco-consciousness strictly by the number of times its residents search for hybrids on Cars.com’s website will never encapsulate the “feeling” of a city. But the results still say a lot about where you live. We looked at new-car searches in every major American city and calculated what percentage of those searches were for hybrids. True to stereotype, we found that the top five cities interested in hybrids were all on the West Coast.

California’s Bay Area led the way with 5.62% of its searches being for hybrid vehicles. Portland, Ore., and Seattle rounded out the top three. Does this mean our friends in the West are the most eco-conscious?

Well, yeah, probably. Still, the numbers here don’t count searches for clean diesels or fuel-efficient cars with regular gasoline engines, like the Toyota Corolla. We’re a bit surprised that notoriously congested urban areas like New York City, Chicago and Atlanta — where hybrids would return the best mileage in a long, slow commute — didn’t make the list. Check out the top 10 hybrid cities after the jump.

Who’s Thinking Green When Searching for a New Car? (Hybrids as a percent of total new car searches)

1. San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose (5.62%)
2. Portland, Ore. (4.78%)
3. Seattle/Tacoma (3.98%)
4. Sacramento/Stockton/Modesto (3.97%)
5. Los Angeles (3.5%)
6. Denver (3.39%)
7. Washington, D.C. (3.23%)
8. Minneapolis/St. Paul (3.19%)
9. Boston (3.17%)
10. Phoenix (3.16%)