Hybrid repeat buyers

Interesting. The long term ripples from this, if real and accurate, could be very significant to the long term hopes for hybrids.

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/10/11101762-hybrid-owners-unlikely-to-buy-another-one-study-shows?lite

And you're surprised why?

Doesn't surprise me. As soon as the HOV exception for hybrids in CA expired the new hybrid sales went into the toilet.

Couple with the boring to drive and doesn't really get the advertised mileage, there really isn't any reason to buy another one. Man cannot live on smug alone or something like that.

It seems to me that the "main" selling point of a Hybrid would be its savings at the pump. I'm guessing most of the people jumped in before doing the math and are now figuring out that it may not have been worth it to them.

Unless they can get the fuel savings up or the purchase price and cost of maintenance down I don't expect any huge sales of Hybrids in the future.

Besides it's "Smiles per gallon" not "Miles per gallon"

Not surprised either. Between EVs and regular ICE vehicles that can get comparable mileage, hybrids make less and less sense every day, especially non-plug-ins.

I don't know the answer to why people don't repeat as buyers, but I am looking to buy a Prius for my wife. It is hard to find a car of similar size, utility and reliability that costs less to own.

Seems to me most people just buy another (probably larger) vehicle from the same automaker.

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120409/OEM05/120409868#ixzz1rYBKmKTt

Speaking as a Prius owner (2007 model) I would buy another one in a heartbeat. However, ours only has 91k miles on it and shows no signs of slowing, so I see no need to replace it. We just averaged 52 mpg on the drive back from Vermont on Easter driving mostly highway, which is supposedly the vehicle's weak point.

There's not really enough info there to draw a lot of conclusions. It doesn't go into what they actually did buy. I heard about some study a few weeks ago that said conventional ICEs have made a lot more advances in the last several years with regard to fuel economy than hybrids. It's one thing to trade in a Prius for a Honda Fit, but another to trade it for a Ford Excursion. Without more information it's hard to draw any societal trend from these numbers.

Once the performance issue is put to bed with hybrids I'll bet we'll all be driving one in 10 years. It's hard to argue with the torque performance of an electric motor. It's also hard to argue with the mpg performance of an internal combustion motor that can be run at it's peak efficiency.

My lame a$$ layman's opinion.

Xceler8x wrote: I'll bet we'll all be driving one in 10 years.

I bet I won't.

Two Pruis owners I know(both like their cars, BTW) traded their Toyota's in on Volts. They both are very happy with them and are averaging between 70 and 80 mpg on their commutes. One states that she really enjoys hardly ever having to deal with the hassle of gas stations.

Between the wider use of forced induction and direct injection, ICE vehicles can nearly match hybrids in MPG, but have 10X the fun factor.

In reply to forzav12:

Even at that rate it will take them 15 years to make up the price differential though. The Volt is the worst of the lot when it comes to paying itself off with efficiency.

I think the Prius c should have the quickest profit time thanks to being priced around $19k.

In 10 years the EV will be the most popular powertrain type for daily commuters. Any new ICE vehicles will be track-oriented versions of sports cars (don't be surprised to see electric sports cars - they accelerate HARD) and maybe semis & HD pickups. The hybrid will be a niche vehicle or totally extinct. Their only purpose is to make up for the short range of EVs, and the range is getting less and less short every day.

GameboyRMH wrote: In 10 years the EV will be the most popular powertrain type for daily commuters. Any new ICE vehicles will be track-oriented versions of sports cars (don't be surprised to see electric sports cars - they accelerate HARD) and maybe semis & HD pickups. The hybrid will be a niche vehicle or totally extinct. Their only purpose is to make up for the short range of EVs, and the range is getting less and less short every day.

I think that 10 years is probably a little on the short side of the actual timeframe, but I agree.

93EXCivic wrote:

Xceler8x wrote: I'll bet we'll all be driving one in 10 years.

I bet I won't.

I bet I won't either, and I won't have an electric car either.

I wonder how many "repeat buyers" of fuel injection there were in 1967?

Jay wrote: I wonder how many "repeat buyers" of fuel injection there were in 1967?

Awesome!

that doesnt surprise me since every hybrid i've driven feels like some disconnected laggy video game cartoon garbage. once they sort that out i might be interested enough to look.

There are lots of things I said I'd never buy - a minivan, anything with an automatic transmission, so on and so forth. If everything stayed as E36 M3ty as it was in the '80s when I was saying this stuff, I probably would have kept my vow. But technology, dynamics, etc improve. Plus my circumstances changed between the ages of 20 and 40. And now I have three other people that get input into my car purchases. Even five or ten years ago, hybrids repulsed me. Now I might buy my wife one.

I've stopped saying never.

WilberM3 wrote: that doesnt surprise me since every hybrid i've driven feels like some disconnected laggy video game cartoon garbage. once they sort that out i might be interested enough to look.

Like Otto said, all of these things will improve. We are seeing the beginning of the technology. Think about automatic transmissions. When introduced they were laggy, dragged down mpg numbers, and unreliable compared to manual transmissions. Now the good ones have solved all of those issues.

Let us now consider a hybrid, or EV, that will run 0-60 so fast you have to have a computer control the acceleration so that it's manageable for the average driver. Impossible? Nope. Electric motors have instant on torque. Also, no power variance depending on RPM like an internal combustion engine. If that electric motor has 300 ft lbs of torque it has it all way from 0 to redline.

Battery tech is getting better so range and durability will improve. It's also possible that in the future you will have battery filling stations. If quick charging isn't a possibility maybe you'll pull in and have your battery pack exchanged for a freshly charged one by the filling station. Another possibility assuming that battery packs are standardized across the EV/hybrid line just as fuel tanks are now. You pull into any station and you can fill any car's fuel tank. Why can't the same standardization apply to battery packs?

All signs point to nothing but improvement for this technology. EV's and hybrids are a boon to the car enthusiast.

Winston wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote: In 10 years the EV will be the most popular powertrain type for daily commuters. Any new ICE vehicles will be track-oriented versions of sports cars (don't be surprised to see electric sports cars - they accelerate HARD) and maybe semis & HD pickups. The hybrid will be a niche vehicle or totally extinct. Their only purpose is to make up for the short range of EVs, and the range is getting less and less short every day.

I think that 10 years is probably a little on the short side of the actual timeframe, but I agree.

+2

I currently drive a diesel, which is only now starting to become accepted again as a viable alternative to a gas car. Even there, emissions controls and gas ICE advances have narrowed the mpg gap considerably.

I would absolutely consider a EV if one can be made for a reasonable price with a ~200 mile range. Then I'll have my ICE cars for nice days or when I occasionally want to relive the smelly old days - best experienced by driving an old LBC.

Like Leno said to James May when Top Gear profiled the Honda prototype hydrogen car: Alternative fuel cars won't kill the combustion engine - it'll save it. Much the same way the automobile 'saved' the horse. Horses are still around, but now they live pampered lives and used for fun, rather than work (the Amish notwithstanding).

WilberM3 wrote: that doesnt surprise me since every hybrid i've driven feels like some disconnected laggy video game cartoon garbage. once they sort that out i might be interested enough to look.

When the Porsche 918 makes its way on down to GRM money and Woody posts a "Dirty 918" thread. That's when I'll own a hybrid.

Or that new NSX.

Why can't there be good looking non supercar hybrids?

Next Acura RL is supposed to be a hybrid with an electric motor for each rear wheel to allow for infinite torque bias in the corners and AWD.

I suspect that in the future a "motor law" will ban cars as we know them. The only vehicles dotting the rural landscape will be gleaming alloy air-cars, far more advanced then today's hybrids.

But some will squirrel away their prized vehicles of the past. Imagine a man who hides a classic- say a Ferrari in a barn. Then, once a week or so his nephew eludes the eyes and makes the journey out to the country, stripping away the old debris that hides the shining car. Imagine the feeling of driving such a beast on a spring day in such a time. Wind in your hair. The shifting and drifting. The mechanical music. Accompanied, no doubt by a surge of adrenalin.

You can imagine such a scene and the young man narrowly escaping the authorities in their air-car. Perhaps the new vehicles are not designed to be accommodated by the narrow country roads. Maybe, just maybe, the precocious youth will make his escape down by a one lane bridge, leaving the giant stranded at the river side.

Then, later that evening, the boy and the uncle could dream – by the side of a roaring fire. Ah. That would be cool.