Hybrid Demand Staying Strong
Are you willing to play tug of war to get a Toyota Highlander Hybrid? How about rock, paper, scissors for a Ford Escape Hybrid?
It might come down to that; Cars.com statistics on unsold new-car inventory within a 30 mile radius of Chicago show only a pair of Highlander Hybrids on lots. There are just nine Escape Hybrids, 79 Honda Civic Hybrids and 248 Toyota Prius hybrids.
“When gas prices go up, so does demand for hybrids, and hybrids are in big demand,” said Jeff Foltz, president of Auto Outlook, which tracks Chicago-area sales for local dealers. “In just the first two months of this year, hybrid sales in Chicagoland rose 40% to 1,514 units, from 1,084 a year ago.”
Prius inventory seems high, but Toyota spokesman John Hanson says there’s only a 25-day supply in stock. Sixty days is considered normal and 30 days lean. Toyota sold 180,000 Prius hybrids last year and will exceed that this year, he said.
Highlander stock is low because it’s only been offered for a few months. Demand is huge, but planned capacity was only 20,000 to 24,000 units.
Honda spokesman Chuck Schifsky says Civic Hybrid sales are up 14% this year, and they rose 44% in March. He said 79 unsold cars doesn’t represent a buildup.
Ford spokesman Jim Cain said the Escape is in very low supply nationwide because, while dealers can sell every one built, how many Ford can build is limited by the number of hybrid systems it can get.
Demand has also been increased by a $3,000 tax credit on the two-wheel-drive Escape and a $2,200 credit on the four-wheel-drive version. Those credits will be phased out and eventually eliminated once Ford passes the 60,000 sales mark, which is expected to happen later this year.
Credits on Toyota hybrids have already been phased out, while Honda is in the phase-out stage, but both said high gas prices without hope of a letup has offset the loss of credits; there’s been no negative impact on sales.
The automaker hurting the most is Saturn, which added a mild hybrid, the Vue Green Line, in 2007. Hybrids accounted for 10% of all Vue sales, but Saturn issued a recall about a month ago because some batteries in the ’07s were failing to hold a charge. Batteries targeted to go into 2008 hybrids were used as replacements, so Saturn won’t have a good supply of 2008 Vue hybrids until late spring or early summer.
Late in the fourth quarter of this year, Saturn will add a dual-mode hybrid using different batteries teamed with a 3.6-liter V-6 engine; this version will be able to run at times on battery power alone, unlike the mild hybrid that’s out now. The mild hybrid, teamed with a 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine, boosts mileage 27%, but the dual mode will boost it 50%.
Based on current hybrid demand, Saturn says it plans to boost output of the dual-mode hybrid for 2009, but won’t say by how much or to what level.
