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Hybrid Car Owners Not Likely To Buy Another Hybrid
An anonymous reader writes "A new study has found that people who purchased a hybrid car in the past are not likely to buy a hybrid for their next car purchase. 'Only 35% of hybrid vehicle owners chose to purchase a hybrid again when they returned to the market in 2011, according to auto information company R.L. Polk & Co. If you factor out the super-loyal Toyota Prius buyers, the repurchase rate drops to under 25%.' The study also found Florida drivers to be a bit more loyal to the hybrid segment than elsewhere in the country. 'It's hard to know what's causing the low repurchase rate. One reason is that about 17,000 people purchased electric cars last year, and other data shows that many of those were trading in a hybrid vehicle. Honda has been hounded by high-profile class-action and small claims court lawsuits over fuel economy issues with older models of its Civic hybrid. ... Hybrid vehicles represent just 2.4% of the overall new vehicle market in the U.S., according to Polk, down from a high of 2.9% in 2008.'"
It could be that people had unreasonable expectations from the hybrid to begin with, if you look at the advertising they promised a green car that doesn't use fuel and has flowers grow in its wake. In reality you ended up getting something that was marginally better fuel mileage than a compact car, but costs a lot more.
I drive a prius, I am disappointed with the fact that they STILL use outdated nimh batteries instead of lithium. Afaik they also don't use any of these new awesome ultracapacitors, so what the hell are they doing? The industry's stagnation annoys me, and I doubt I am alone.
We have a couple of problems here: As you point out, hybrids are more expensive than they should be for purely cost-concious consumers. Secondly, though, with all-electric cars (or even gasoline-assisted electrics like the Volt) coming out, it's becoming more and more obvious that hybrids are destined to be a short-lived stepping stone and not the long-term solution to our oil and pollution problems. This means the environment-concious people are more likely to buy a Leaf or a Volt than buy another hybrid.
So, basically, hybrids aren't cost effective enough for people buying primarily on cost, and they're not green enough for people buying primarily on environmental friendliness. As all-electrics continue to improve, the age of the hybrid will come to an end.
Same price? Honda's website advertises the Civic Sedan starting at $15,995 (39mpg) and the Civic Hybrid starting at $24,200 (44mpg). A hybrid costs 50% more for a 13% mpg increase. Even the most expensive non-hybrid Civic is less expensive than the Hybrid (excluding the natural gas model). And that assumes you take the time to drive the hybrid as a hybrid, which most people won't.
Hybrids are an alternative for drivers who want to be green, think of diesel as the soot spewing lorries and buses of yesteryear, can't live with the short range and abysmal interior space of of pure electrics, and can afford the price premium.
Living in the US, gas prices is my least concern. $4.50 per gallon? That's ridiculously cheap - far less than I paid in the 90s back in Europe. So sell me a car I can like, with decent acceleration, cargo space and range. Sorry, it won't be a Prius or Volt; much as I'd love to go the green route, they are not particularly green when factoring in the factory footprint, and I can't use them for much more than commuting.
So, basically, hybrids aren't cost effective enough for people buying primarily on cost
You could also say, oil isn't expensive enough -- the gas prices don't reflect the real cost of oil.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
No new car, of any sort, is "green".
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I don't fault Chevy in any way for their marketing. They are very clear about what the Volt is and is not. They just have purposefully avoided using the actual terms "hybrid" or "plug-in hybrid".
I'm confused. They're refusing to use the name for it, "plug-in hybrid", and that's being very clear. It seems they refuse to give it any name.
Q. Is the Volt an electric car or a hybrid?
A. Volt is an innovative, never-been-done-before car that exists alone, in a brand-new category of cars. Volt is a fullâ"performance electric vehicle with extended range.
Really? It's a plug-in hybrid and they've been made before. Just never marketed this widely. I don't see this kind of dishonestly as good. Nor do I believe the excuse the all marketing is lies as valid.
>>> it's becoming more and more obvious that hybrids are destined to be a short-lived stepping stone and not the long-term solution to our oil and pollution problems
Yes because an electric car can really carry me 150 miles per day on my work commute. (Not.) .
Even if you're not, most car manufacturers are aware that people other than you purchase automobiles.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Hybrids CAN pay for themselves on a couple conditions. #1 you must use the vehicle for 100K miles or more. #2 you must be able to do math #3 you probably need to be doing a lot of city driving.
Let's do some math for the 2012 Ford Fusion Over 100K miles at 26mpg you will burn 3846 gallons of gas.
At $3.50 per gallon that's $13461 in gas.
For the hybrid, it's 39mpg (combined as is the 26 figure above). so this works out to $8974 in gas.
For a savings of $4487.
If I recall correctly, the price adder for that car was higher than that, so not a win. However, the savings goes up by 50 percent if you drive it for 150K miles. The savings will also go up with gas prices. It also gets better if you do predominantly city driving (I used the generic "combined" EPA figures). At some point it will be a net savings. This trivial example also neglects some other nice things like not wearing out your brake rotors (a non-trivial cost) or reduced number of oil changes (a trivial cost). It also neglects the cost of battery replacement - something which people worry about but I have not heard being a real world issue.
A Prius OTOH can be had for much closer to $20K and is generally a winner compared to any non-hybrid car so long as you drive 100K miles. I'm not a fan of it and would not buy one.
As volumes go up we can also expect the cost differential to come down.
So there we have the reason - it's not obvious weather you save dollars. Many people actually DO save money with a hybrid - particularly Prius owners.
Oil is worth what they can get for it. If the price goes too high then alternatives become economically viable. The reason gas is king is because relatively speaking it's cheap. If they get greedy and drive it too high they'll cause other options to begin taking off and if the Oil people aren't careful one of those other options could take hold causing them a serious problem. I don't know that Oil could handle real competition.
If you want a real green alternative, buy a bike.
Sure, to get to work (1.5 miles for me) an electric would be fine. But what about when I want to go visit my sister (83 miles one direction) for an evening? How about when we go see the in-laws (298 miles one way) every few months? Or what about a busy Saturday running errands all over town - I've easily done 150+ miles just in around-town-driving on a busy Saturday. The point is, owning a limited range car only for your commute is great, but I still have to have something that I can refuel or replenish the range on quickly and easily when I need to travel outside the limited range of an all-electric solution.
"Excluding Prius owners"... well there's your problem. Of the hybrids people would likely be trading in (2000-2008ish), only the Toyota Prius is worth a damn. All the others in that year range had tiny electric motors which barely gave any hybrid boost at all. If the "hybrid" you're trading in is basically an ordinary car with a cordless drill motor strapped to the fan belt, of course you're not going to be loyal to it.
If you want a real green alternative, buy a bike.
I own one. But in practice, green ideals must be evaluated against one's needs. A car puts a barrier between the driver and the weather; a bike does not. A car has enough metal surface to trigger induction loops connected to traffic signals; a bike does not. A car can carry passengers larger than 50 lbs (22 kg); a typical bike trailer cannot. A car can travel on controlled access highways; a bike cannot.
It's amazing how many people have never heard of "rental cars".