April 26, 2005
Although hybrid vehicle sales are off and running, American manufacturers are being left at the starting line, with Japanese manufacturers capturing more than 96 percent of hybrid sales in the U.S.
New hybrid vehicle registrations totaled 83,153 in 2004, an 81 percent increase over the year before. The huge increase occurred before the latest dramatic run-up in gasoline prices. Nevertheless sales nearly doubled as a wider variety of models attracted consumers.
Hybrids still represented less than 1 percent of the 17 million new vehicles sold in 2004. But the U.S. hybrid market has grown by 960 percent since 2000, when 7,781 were sold, according to the Polk data, and major automakers plan to introduce about a dozen new hybrids during the next three years.
Despite the arrival of Ford Motor Co.'s Ford Escape hybrid in showrooms last year, Japanese automakers continued to control the vast majority of the U.S. market, Polk said. Japanese brands accounted for more than 96 percent of the hybrid vehicles registered.
Toyota Motor Corp., which was the first automaker to mass produce and sell hybrid cars, dominates the market. The Toyota Prius, which went on sale in the United States in 2000, occupied 64 percent of the U.S. hybrid market last year, with 53,761 new Priuses registered, Polk said.
Toyota is on track to double Prius sales again this year. The company sold 22,880 Prius cars in the first three months of the year, more than double the number it sold in the first three months of 2004. Toyota has announced it plans to produce 100,000 Priuses for the North American market this year.
The Honda Civic hybrid was second, with a 31-percent market share. Honda Motor Co. also sold several hundred Accord and Insight hybrids, which each commanded 1 percent of the market. Ford sold 2,566 Escape hybrid SUVs, or about 3 percent of the market, Polk said.
Automakers are introducing hybrid versions of several models this year, including the Lexus RX400h, Mercury Mariner and Toyota Highlander SUVs. General Motors Corp. and DaimlerChrysler AG already sell hybrid pickups, but the system they use is less fuel-efficient.
