Ford motor (F, Financial) is one of the leading automobile companies. They, like many other automobile companies, have looked to move to greener vehicles. Some of these are hybrid; plug in hybrids and all electric cars. Some of the cars Ford manufactures in this class are the Ford C-Max hybrid, Ford Fusion and the Ford Energi.
Past hybrid sales scenario
At the end of third quarter in 2014 Ford had sold more hybrids vehicles on average than it had done at any time previously. At the end of 2013 Ford had sold 86,000 of its four hybrid models. Then by the end of the third quarter in 2014 they had sold 62,600 hybrids and plug in hybrids which had put them well on track to reach over 90,000 cars for the full year. The most popular of the brands sold is the Ford Fusion with 35,257 out of the over 62,000 mentioned earlier.
Current hybrid sales progress
These strong sales are being dented this year so far from the reports of the first quarter. This is largely due to the low gasoline price which persists on into 2015. It seems that this may remain so for the remainder of this year. Ford’s main rivals in the sales of hybrids Toyota Motor Corp. (TM, Financial), who are the manufacturers of the very popular Prius, have suffered noticeably from this. In the first quarter of 2015 the sales of the Prius are down 15.6% compared to the numbers from the same period last year. The low gasoline prices are also causing hybrid and electric car owners to now trade in their cars at a higher rate than ever. Edmunds reported that about 22% of owners of hybrid and electric cars have traded their cars so far this year for new sport utility vehicles. That rate is twice the amount recorded three years ago of about 11.9%.
For electric cars, also called EVs, the sales are just as gloomy for the Chevy (GM, Financial) Spark, Nissan (NSANY, Financial) Leaf and the Ford C-Max. The Nissan Leaf has seen sales down 21.2% in comparison to sales from the same quarter last year. The Ford EV sales are down 9%.The Chevy Spark has seen a significant jump of 31% in sales though, but that is only because the previous sales for the corresponding period was just 115 cars. For plug-in hybrids such as the Chevy Volt and the Ford C-Max Energi the first quarterly sales are down as well. The Volt is down 48% and the C-Max has dropped 1.5%.
Outlook
These figures are not exactly heartening for those of us who would like to see more development in cars running on alternative power sources. What you need to realize though that this is largely due to low gasoline prices and it is not likely that these low prices can continue for an extended period.
