Posted on 04/05/2024 10:09:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
DETROIT (Reuters) - As U.S. sales of gas-electric hybrid vehicles surge and electric-vehicle sales cool, automakers and suppliers are betting consumer demand for a compromise between all-combustion and all-electric is a durable trend.
Automakers and suppliers are adding capacity to build gasoline-electric hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles for the U.S. market, responding to increased consumer demand for technology that General Motors and other automakers once planned to phase out in favor of all-electric fleets, industry executives and analysts said.
U.S. sales of hybrids grew five times faster than EV sales in February, Morgan Stanley said. A plug-in hybrid version of the Jeep Wrangler SUV accounted for half of total U.S. Wrangler sales in the second half of 2023, up from 37% in the first half of the year, Stellantis said.
Sales of Ford Motor hybrids rose nearly 37% during the first two months of the year, driven by demand for the hybrid Maverick compact truck that starts at $25,315.
"The hottest car on our lot right now is the Maverick hybrid," said Scott Simmers, general manager at Palm Springs Motors in Cathedral City, California.
The hybrid Maverick now accounts for about half the model's sales and dealers said they could sell more if Ford could build them.
"We had to rush to add capacity for Maverick," Jim Baumbick, Ford vice president for product development, told Reuters. "We added a whole third shift to respond to demand."
The industry shift toward hybrids challenges the Biden administration's pro-EV climate policies, and environmental groups that want automakers to phase out CO2-emitting internal combustion engines as quickly as possible.
The White House is expected this month to issue vehicle CO2 emissions standards designed to force automakers to increase the share of fully electric vehicles they sell to as much as 60% by 2030.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
"Hybrids are a big hedge against an administrative change that cools down the push from a regulatory standpoint," said Mark Wakefield, head of AlixPartners' global automotive practice.
so you buy a hybrid...and only use gas...
Toyota was a head of the curve on this.
Gotta keep those children in the Congo busy mining the poison Cobalt granules by hand.
I wish they built more hybrid turbo-4s for output.
I don’t want a hybrid either. Still has a battery that will go bad and is expensive to replace. The battery makes the car heavy requiring new tires more often. A heavy car is harder to stop and handles more poorly than the equivalent normal car. No thanks, not for me.
I have a gas/electric hybrid - the problem is it’s underpowered b/c it has two smaller engines, neither of which is very powerful. Mileage is nowhere near what was stated at the dealer.
Hybrids were always the smarter path.
The downside of Hybrids of course is that unreliable CVT.
RE: I don’t want a hybrid either. Still has a battery that will go bad and is expensive to replace.
I own a 2008 Toyota Prius. At 192,000 miles, it still runs very well. Of courser, I’ve never driven it more than 200 miles from where I live. For that, I still rely on my ICE car.
“...driven by demand for the hybrid Maverick compact truck that starts at $25,315.”
The demand is artificial.
due to givernment mandates, manufacturers are forced to remove sedans from their fleet and standardize on SUV format, which is classified as a light truck.
Moreover, SUV platform can be converted to hybrid
Auto industry needs to look really hard at how desirable an electric or even hybrid electric car looks in the American Market.
I’m sure they’re doing just that, but people have legitimate reservations on electric powered cars, and reliability and expenses are a serious issue.
Exactly. They saw the writing on the wall long before anyone else did, and it seems.
You are 100% correct.
Toyota was so far ahead of society it is mindboggling. The Prius is what people think of when they think hybrid. And unlike these other models, it is not in year 1 working out the problems.
In a general way, a hybrid is a gasoline powered, usually underpowered car, that hauls a battery around needlessly.
The EV is for people who live in a city, work in the city, and for whatever reason wanted to pay to park a car rather than ride a subway.
Uh, did I miss when EV sales heated up? How can it cool down?
“Auto industry needs to look really hard at how desirable an electric or even hybrid electric car looks in the American Market.“
The car makers have Government standing on their throats. They know the EV demand is not there but they have been told the rats are going to regulate ICE cars off the roads. They are not reacting to market forces they are reacting to Government tyranny.
Hybrids...
half as good on electric power...
and half as good on petro-power.
Therefore, why bother, unless you’re only going to use them on short trips all the time?
At that point, why even bother with the electric side of the vehicle? Go ICE all the time, and give Biden and the environmental lobbies the middle finger and tell them “electrify this...”.
Yep, I believe Toyota said they could build 37 Hybrids using the battery resources of a single EV.
My youngest daughter owns a 2007 Nissan Altima Hybrid, from brand new. Also has many miles on it and runs like new. She has driven it on multiple trips from California to Kansas, Texas, Iowa and Minnesota. She intends to turn it over to her daughter someday. Nissan licensed the tech from Toyota, but stopped making those hybrids early on. A shame, because the ICE engine is far more powerful than the Toyota version.
that should have been the RATs first choice for incrementalism...but no...they wanted the whole ball of wax now.
I was hoping the car makers would do what they whispered to do after the first oil crisis back in the early 70s....flat out close down rather than meet unreachable mpg standards...
Toyota started to have most of their whole lines of autos with a hybrid model.
I have 2017 Hyundai base Ioniq hybrid bought new in Jan 2018 - rated @ 59 mpg hwy...
during the summer I sometimes can get 65 mpg with cruise set and on a flat highway.
Winter it only gets about 45 mpg.
Curb weight is approx 2900 lbs...an all electric is approx. 3100 lbs.
I have a lifetime warranty on the hybrid batteries.(Hyundai has since stopped that type of warranty)
I have 41k on it. Tires still have decent read on them.
You are right about HP - 139 total. Yet, I was doing 100 last week and I could still kick it more and it was still a smooth ride.
This is the longest I have ever owned a car and of all of them, this has been the best so I bought an extended service contract, which I never do.
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