Hybrids sales stall could lead to lower prices

2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid (Photo: Toyota Canada)

Though the folks at Honda and Toyota (particularly Toyota) might beg to differ, I am not actually anti-hybrid. Well, I'm not anti-hybrid in theory, but the current practice of hybrids does not impress me much at all.

This was a rather lonely attitude to take for a long time, since there seems to have many rounds of poisoned Kool-Aid served on all those car company-sponsored junkets to launch the Prius and other models.

Lots of people who should have known better (the auto journalist crowd) and lots of people who don't seem to know much about anything automotive (the mass media and TV writers) leaped straight up in the air in praise of hybrids as a surefire method of saving the world.

But since there aren't many facts in support of that world-saving claim, those folks had nothing to land on and as a result they're falling like stones. In that way, they resemble hybrid car sales in the U.S. for March. (It should be noted that while hybrid sales were falling south of the border, Honda Canada reported close to a four-fold sales increase for their Accord and Civic hybrids for the same time versus last year. Toyota Canada has not replied to a request for clarification.)

2006 Honda Accord Hybrid (Photo: Honda Canada)

Environmentalists who want to rend their garments over this situation should not get out whatever implement it is that one uses to rend something. It says here that falling sales of hybrids in the U.S. is a very good thing, for the environment at least.

It is even a good thing that the most compelling reason to buy a Prius in LA and other places is that it allows you to drive in the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes without a second person in the car, even though the fuel-saving value of a hybrid is limited or non-existent at highway speeds.

These are good things because they are giving the Japanese companies pause, and perhaps that means they will reconsider their pricing on hybrids. Ample evidence is now available from several generally reliable sources (Edmunds.com, the British Columbia insurance company, Consumer Reports) proving that it's highly unlikely that anyone will recover the premiums the car companies are charging for hybrids with reduced gasoline use during a normal experience (a certain mileage over a certain time) with the vehicle.

2006 Toyota Prius (Photo: Toyota Canada)

Perhaps word is also getting around about the lack of service technicians available to fix these things, repair costs that are likely to be high and the huge amount of energy required to create and dispose of them, among other negative issues. Who knows?

But if consumers in the U.S. stay smart and Canadians get wise, in time we might see a re-alignment of prices for hybrids, and that would lead to wider hybrid use and the small environmental benefits that would result.