It might not be 1979, but plenty of people, especially those driving gas guzzlers, would say there’s a fuel crisis. It’s a rare moment when big grins adorn environmentalists and oil companies alike, but all indicators point at the likelihood of $4-a-gallon gas being here to stay. The OPEC oil crisis delivered compact and subcompact cars into the hands of Americans in numbers for the first time, and expensive gas is doing it again as illustrated by Ford and GM’s recent commitment to new lines of smaller vehicles. This time around, however, hybrid technology is enabling greater choice of vehicle size and performance to go with respectable fuel economy.
The five bestselling hybrid vehicles in the U.S. contain few surprises. Toyota dominates the lineup with three vehicles, with Ford and first-to-market Honda filling out the list. All but the Prius are available in nonhybrid form.
Judging from the 2007 sales numbers listed below, customers are willing to pay a premium to have a hybrid badge drag a green highlighter over their autobiography. As volume manufacturing hacks at battery prices—the primary foe in hybrid product pricing—this effective technological weapon in the fuel-economy wars will reshape the product landscape and this bestsellers list. Vehicles such as the Highlander and Escape point to the future of larger hybrids, and we look forward to reporting on hybrid sports cars.
(181,221 sales)
Base Price: $22,160
City: 48 mpg
Highway: 45 mpg
Combined: 46 mpg
Car buyers usually avoid the final model year of a vehicle before a redesign as if the car’s interior reeked of cat urine, but the fact that an
all-new Priusarrives in 2009 (as a 2010) hasn’t prevented Toyota from selling nearly three times as many Priuses this year as the next-bestselling hybrid. We don’t imagine the fact that a plug-in Prius is due to arrive in 2010 will defer buyers in ’09, either. Toyota could stipulate “Hybrid Synergy Drive” forearm tattoos, and people would arrive in showrooms with their sleeves rolled up, such is worship of the church of Prius. Toyota remains happily, however, a for-profit organization. There’s no reason people shouldn’t be lining up right now to buy the vehicle that does one thing better than all others (at least in the U.S.): convert one gallon of $4 gas into more than 45 miles of ground covered.
(54,492 sales)
Base Price: $25,860
City: 33 mpg
Highway: 34 mpg
Combined: 34 mpg
Offering a version of the perennially bestselling Camry that produces better fuel economy is as slam-dunk a business case as they come. Toyota noted Honda’s folly with the expensive and quick Accord hybrid, giving the Camry hybrid more than half again the city fuel economy of the V-6 model while keeping the price comparable and loading it with safety goodies and a plush interior. The cushy, quiet, family-size Camry hybrid costs about $2400 more than the compact Civic hybrid, which, unsurprisingly, it neatly wallops in sales.