Hybrids suck!
From The Windsor Star:
Hybrid Owners Unsatisfied: Study
A highly reliable consumer research firm which specializes in automotive matters has discovered that most owners of hybrid vehicles are not buying another one when it comes time to get their next car.
The study, by R.L. Polk, finds that a clear majority of hybrid owners decide not to opt for the higher-priced form of transportation a second time. Depending on the brand, up to 80 per cent of buyers abandon the hybrid segment when they buy again.
Honda hybrid owners seemed the least happy, with only one in five buying a second hybrid. Here is another version the Polk story, at Automotive News.
This is not good news for automotive companies which have invested billions in hybrids, many of which have yet to even reach the market. If the ones already in showrooms aren’t capturing buyers’ imaginations the second time around, that doesn’t bode well for sales in the segment, no matter how many choirs of green angels sing when one is driven off the dealer’s lot.
Drivers of the Toyota Prius are the most loyal, but even a majority of them don’t return to a hybrid when they buy the next time: three out of five go back to a regular gasoline powered vehicle.
Is this another “green dream” biting the dust? Will we soon see hybrid cars in environmental museums — next to the industrial wind turbines, government-subsidized solar farms and polar bear rescue charities?
Or has the term “hybrid” been so over-hyped that it’s become counter-productive from a marketing point of view? Maybe “hybrid” has become the modern equivalent to the “Volvo-driving quiche eaters” insult of the 1970s.
This may be why General Motors refuses to hype its latest hybrids; GM’s hybrid Buicks and Chevy Malibus are marketed as “Eco” models, but the company rarely if ever use the term hybrid in their advertising to describe how they get better mileage.
GM may have been on to something before the Polk report came out. Consumers will pay a little extra for better mileage, but many may be shying away from the political label implied by emblazoning the word “hybrid” all over a vehicle.
And this despite the fact that these pieces of junk are being subsidized up the kazoo!
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