Jim Lynch: Off the Top of My Head…

Well this really isn’t much of a surprise. Given that they were overpriced to begin with, I figured hybrid sales would drop significantly once gas prices dropped.

Americans have cut back on buying vehicles of all types as the economy continues its slide. But the slowdown has been particularly brutal for hybrids, which use electricity and gasoline as power sources. They were the industry’s darling just last summer, but sales have collapsed as consumers refuse to pay a premium for a fuel-efficient vehicle now that the average price of a gallon of gasoline nationally has slipped below $2.

“When gas prices came down, the priority of buying a hybrid fell off quite quickly,” said Wes Brown, a partner at Los Angeles-based market research firm Iceology. “Yet even as consumer interest declined, the manufacturers have continued to pump them out.”

Last month, only 15,144 hybrids sold nationwide, down almost two-thirds from April, when the segment’s sales peaked and gas averaged $3.57 a gallon. That’s far larger than the drop in industry sales for the period and scarcely a better showing than January, when hybrid sales were at their lowest since early 2005.

In July, U.S. Toyota dealers didn’t have enough Prius models in stock to last two days, and many were charging thousands of dollars above sticker price for the few they had.

Today there are about 80 days’ worth on hand, and dealers are working much harder — even with the help of $500 factory rebates — to move the egg-shaped gas-savers off lots from Santa Monica to Miami.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the *idea* of hybrids. But the cost needs to come down far enough that they are no longer any more expensive than a non-hybrid. Paying a premium to save a few dollars at the gas pump just doesn’t make sense when that premium is thousands and thousands of dollars. Over the life of the vehicle you just don’t end up saving any money.

I also think that more and more people are getting hip to what a lie “global warming” and “climate change” really are and are much more inclined to believe that the earth goes through natural warming and cooling periods. Despite all of the “global warming” and “climate change” propoganda being put out in the media, people aren’t buying into it and thus aren’t basing their automotive purchases on fear or guilt.

When it comes time to replace my beloved Toyota 4Runner, I’ll consider a hybrid but only if it makes financial sense to do so. I’m not going to pay an additional ten or twenty thousand dollars for a hybrid version. Nor will I buy something that can’t do what my current 4Runner can do. So it’s really up to the auto companies to drive down costs of their hybrids if they want to sell more of them. They simply can’t rely on early adopters or guilt-ridden liberal yuppies to drive sales of these cars any longer.

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