CNET has recently added a car tech section; the brief hyrbid piece references a CNET survey and includes CNET reader responses to the hybrid article.
Snipped from article:

Whole article:
http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-6224...ml?tag=nl.e501

Lewis

 

A lot of people make that New Year's resolution to lose weight, but few actually follow through.

Fear of the unknown (i.e. hybrids) still seems to inhibit sales. After all, a lot of people still think "you plug them in overnight". Then their are stories like "13 Prius drivers report the engine shuts off at highway speed" and look at such reports more critically than design flaws in conventional vehicles....

Lack of hybrid choices at a competive prices are a factor. A lot of people just don't want to drive compact cars. Others are seeking higher performance.

It seems some people over-politicize hybrids. When the V-8 was introduced by Ford in 1932 it was seen as a more efficient engine - just like the hybrid engine should be viewed. Instead, a number of people peg hybrid drivers as members of Greenpeace, etc.

 

For a concise rebuttal to the CNET article issues, see Repboy's TalkBack reply (5-18-05), titled "Astonishingly Ignorant Article." Scroll down past the CNET article.
Or, direct link here:
http://www.cnet.com/5208-6033-0-10.h...102&start=-220
Lewis

 

Why? Uh, even the wealth of Bill Gates took a little while to amass.

 

Not enough Prii are being manufactured. There's never any on the lots and people are having to wait while their car is shipped from Japan. Toyota dealerships have a mandate to sell the high-profit vehicles and that does not include hybrids because of the technology in them. I think a lot more could be sold if they would put the brakes on their conventional cars and focus on the hybrids and EVs, but they won't because they are a corporation, and as such they have a mandate to turn the biggest profit they can in any given quarter. People will want more efficient vehicles as the price of energy rises, and that's the only thing that's gonna motivate people to go for something more efficient than what they drive now. But right now demand is far outstripping production, there are never any discounts on them and you'll be lucky if there's a new Prius available at a dealership. There will certainly be many more on the road if there were dealership yards filled with them in every imaginable trim so people would be much more tempted to grab one.

Besides, when most people buy a hybrid and sell off their old car, that old car is still on the road, not scrapped immediately, so the percent of hybrids vs normal vehicles will take a long time to change.

What's their problem with the reality of hybrids not being as profitable as conventional cars, and not being around for very long? I suppose they just wanted to be "fair and balanced" in their reporting on the hybrid market, too bad they forgot to put any thought into it.

 

Unfortunately, most people will only see a monetary incentive to buying a hybrid, regardless of environmental issues. I suggest US fuel prices are still not high enough, or people have too much money to waste on fuel - but 50% of owners expressing a preference still aint bad.
Hopefully most cars will soon become PZEVs anyway.

 

I agree, US fuel prices are really low as compared to most other places, as are Canadian fuel prices, even though marginally higher they really haven't pushed people to think in terms of efficiency at all. Smart people are catching on and thinking about it now, but really not a lot of people can afford to drop the cash on a new vehicle, so those factor in as well, but way way too many SUVs being cranked out. Why not produce very few of them, not have them on the lots and make people order them and wait? That would make a lot more sense if the corporations actually wanted to do something about the fuel consumption problem, but it's rather obvious they just need their profit fix, at any cost.

When I first heard an announcement about the new Beetle they said it was going to have a diesel/electric hybrid option, and I was really excited about it, but by the time it was on the market it had no such option, and still doesn't. Sad, considering how far ahead that would have put VWs at that time, and all the nice upgrades and modification that would be around now. These corporations always look at products through the scope of "how many can we sell" and that sort of thing, and if they don't think there will be enough demand for x or y then it's dropped, especially if it's something that's not as profitable, such as hybrid technology.

 

Exactly.

Plot the number of hybrids on the road since 2001 over time. It is astonishing to see how quickly hybrids have been accepted. If the current rate (or even 1/4th the rate) continues, hybrids will be a dominating presence in the auto world within a decade.

Toyota anticipated selling 36K model year 2004 Prii in the US, and instead sold 100K -- limited by production. Model year 2005 production for the US is 150K, and there is *still* a waiting list, and people happily agree to pay MSRP. In the entire Toyota lineup of cars, only two (the corolla and camry) substantially outsell Prius, and Camry is going hybrid.

That is the force of hybrid tech, and Detroit ignores it to their peril, whiny columnists notwithstanding.