Hybrid vehicle sales for 2004 rise almost 100 percent

According the Mercury News, automakers recently reported hybrid car and truck sales for 2004, and sales of seven gas-electric vehicles rose almost 100 percent to 85,699 hybrid vehicles sold, compared to 43,435 in 2003.

The Toyota Prius accounted for 63 percent of total hybrid vehicle sales, at 53,991 units sold.

The Honda Accord hybrid, which was only on sale for a few weeks in 2004, sold almost 1,100 units in just part of December.

Similar to Accord hybrid sales, the Ford Escape hybrid is averaging about 1000 sales per month since October, when the Escape hybrid was released.

Other hybrid vehicles on sale in 2004 included the Honda Insight, Honda Civic hybrid, as well as the Chevy Silverado hybrid, and the GMC Sierra hybrid pickups.

Automotive analyst, Anthony Pratt of J.D. Power and associates noted, "The fact that all vehicle manufacturers have a hybrid strategy is significant."

According to Matt Nauman of the Mercury News, "Power, the Westlake Village researcher, projects that U.S. hybrid sales will reach 222,000 this year and 500,000 by 2009. If that prediction comes true, hybrids would account for nearly 3 percent of the U.S. car and truck market in 2009. In 2004, hybrid sales represented about 0.5 percent of the 16.9 million vehicles sold."

With the Lexus RX 400h hybrid, the world's first luxury hybrid SUV, and the Toyota Highlander hybrid coming to market in 2005, those numbers seem light.

Power predicts significant hybrid growth for 2005, but then the auto researcher seems to think demand will slow through 2009, even as the hybrid field expands to 30 models by 2008 - that's less than 20,000 units per year for each hybrid model.

That seems like quite a sudden drop in hybrid momentum, just as the hybrid field finally gets competitive, as well as an awful waste of time for automobile manufacturers.