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Cars and Drivers

U.S. Hybrid Car Sales Up 61% Last Year

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By Paul Ausick Updated Published
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Ford C-MAX EV OK
courtesy Ford Motor Co.
2012 was a decent year for sales of alternative energy vehicles in the United States. Not a great year, but not bad. Sales of hybrids rose 61% over 2011 sales, and as a percentage of total sales, hybrid sales rose 13%. Overall, hybrid cars comprised 3% of total auto sales in 2012, according to hybridcars.com. That is up from 2.1% of all sales in 2011.

Hybrid sales totaled 1.35 million vehicles in 2012, with Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) grabbing just over 20% of the total with sales of more than 276,000 hybrids. The company’s Lexus division added another 38,000 in sales. Toyota’s plug-in electric vehicles sold about 13,000 units.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) sold about 26,500 hybrids and another 3,000 or so all-electric vehicles. The Chevy Volt from General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) sold 23,461 units, an increase of more than 200% from 2011.

Plug-in electric vehicles, like the Chevy Volt and the Model S from Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), accounted for just 0.37% of total vehicle sales in 2011.

While alternative energy vehicle sales are rising, they are not likely to make a significant dent in total sales for a long time to come.

The complete hybridcars.com report is available here.

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About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for a673b.bigscoots-temp.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

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