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Despite Gas Prices, Hybrid Sales Stall
Apr 03, 2012, 11:26 AM
By AnnaMaria Andriotis
Car sales are up again, but despite rising gas prices, few consumers are buying hybrids. Instead, they’re choosing less fuel-efficient – and less costly — subcompacts and mid-size vehicles.
March sales rose 22% from the previous month and 13% from a year ago to an annualized rate of 14.3 million vehicles, according to data released today by Edmunds.com. Experts credit rising gas prices as a leading factor for this spike in consumer demand. Sales of subcompact cars and mid-size cars made up 24% of total market share in March, up three percentage points from a year ago – the biggest growth in any category, according to forecasts by Kelley Blue Book. But despite the large swings in gas prices, hybrid sales have barely budged: they made up just 2.1% of market share last month, almost unchanged from a year ago. Of the 1.4 million cars that sold last month, less than 30,000 of them were hybrids. “Interest in hybrids is not as high as one would think especially in light of high gas prices,” says Jesse Toprak, vice president of market intelligence at TrueCar.com.
https://blogs.smartmoney.com/advice/2012/04/03/despite-gas-prices-hybrid-sales-stall/