http://www.boston.com/cars/news/arti...nterest_wanes/
What I like about a mainstream paper is they don't publish just the raw numbers of hybrid sales but put it in perspective by comparing the numbers to the industry sales. Going from 2.1% to 1.6% makes a lot of sense as gas prices dropped 2/3d from the high in August.

The only thing not mentioned was how the hybrid demand so exceeded the supply until recently. Only Toyota, Honda and Ford were offering any hybrids for sale and often adding pure dealer profits to the MSRP. As the inventory in the dealer lots build up, prices should soften. In short, it looks to be an excellent time to buy a hybrid . . . before the next oil price jump.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

CNW Marketing Research are a bunch of idiots. Their dust to dust report is the most inaccurate piece of garbage I have ever read. They pass the info like its based on some type of fact, when the reality is that they just make things up and publish them.

by the way i want everyone how read the report and thinks its BS to write these people and try to figure out where the money is coming from.

Mailroom@cnwmr.com

The moment you see "CNW", you know the article is going to be a hatchet job. I was a retail store manager for 10 years and I can tell you we never, EVER compared August to November. We might compare August 2002 to August 2003, or November 2003 to November 2004. But it was always comparing a same-store same-month.

Yeah, the August/ November thing raised a red flag for me, too. People in the media are always managing to find ways in which the numbers make the hybrids look bad, so it's not a surprise. 'Hybrids are great!' is a human interest story that was fun for a little while, but the whole story line of 'everyone thinks hybrids are so great but it's really not so because of x' seems to have an indefinite shelf life.

Just wait until gas starts going up again (as it inevitably will).

BTW, gas prices have not fallen by 2/3 from the Aug. high. That would have meant going from $3 to $1. Slightly less than a 1/3 drop is more like it. (Prices around here got close to, but never broke below, $2 before the late Oct. run-up.)

Actually, gas prices have been steadily going back up since the November election (a more transparent vote-bribe I've never seen). In Baltimore, gasoline was $2.04/gallon on election day. A short 64 days later, it's up to to $2.39/gallon. So it's going up at about a penny every other day. So if that progression follows to summer, gasoline will back at $2.99/gallon (120 days from now at 0.5 cents per day.)

It seemed to me that it was the $3 mark when people who were generally uninterested in hybrids suddenly wanted to save gas.

I am very certain that the psychological threshhold will be crossed this summer -- especially since Bush isn't going to be getting any smarter, less corrupt, or less greedy.

I just paid $2.08 a gallon a couple days ago in Dallas, Texas area. Now, I can find it for $2 even (just lowered today). It was $2.02 yesterday. Exact same station.

I'd put the brakes on that easy target of election-fixing. First, if that WAS the plan, whoever was orchestrating it waited WAY, WAY too long to push the prices back down (so that everyone would somehow forget about the high prices and vote Republican ).
Second - it sure didn't work.
Third - If it was election-fixed, there would be ZERO interest now in lowering the prices, like I have personally seen recently, and which has been published around the world. Crude prices are down 15% of so since the beginning of this year. This is (reported as) due to unusually low Northeastern US heating oil demand, due to their mild winter. When summer rolls around we'll see them climb greatly, I suspect. Warmer summers means more A/C, and more vacations, both using more gas.
Supply vs. demand, mostly. Some greed for sure, but election-fixing - I don't see it.

About the CNW article. Comparing August to November is ludicrous. I'm sure *their* argument is so that they can "really get the current and up-to-the-minute pulse of the market". And that comparing year-over-year results are meaningless with this new technology. But that is all horsesh*t. The numbers year-over-year just didn't meet their storyline's goal, so they chose not to use them. This happens in all walks of life, and business. But it's almost ALWAYS from one party trying to *SELL* their story to another. This is exactly CNW's tactic. An un-biased story would certainly have commented on the year-over-year sales, whether the numbers supported their slant, or not. Failing to mention them opens the story up to (just) criticism. There. I've wasted enough time talking about CNW and their "journalism."

Steve

STOP terrorism - Drive a HYBRID

Vehicles:
350 miles a week ------------ 2006 HCH II, Magnetic Pearl, w/NAVI (born on May 25, 2006)
350 miles a month ---------- 2003 Mazda Tribute ES-V6
350 miles a year (for now) - 1986 Mercedes 560SL

Remember, there are two kinds of statistics: The kind you look up, and the kind you MAKE up! Maybe someday, the media will be held accountable for their claims!