GRA
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Via GCR: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1108483_hybrid-market-share-peaked-in-2013-down-since-then
What's a "green car"? Is it a hybrid? A zero-emission vehicle? One that plugs in? Or just one that uses less fuel than other cars in its segment? It's a perpetual conundrum, for Green Car Reports among others, but it illustrates one of the longstanding challenges in the field.
Will the market for green cars expand as more enter the market, or is it limited—and will newer kinds of green cars supersede older ones? . . . .
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On the other hand, over that time, sales of plug-in electric vehicles have risen from zero in 2007 to 96,000 in hybrids' peak year of 2013 to roughly 160,000 last year. (Looking at the total sales numbers, the hybrid sales shown above do not include plug-in hybrids, which are counted separately from the total above.)
The image came in a tweet from Teryn Norris, a former White House appointee at the U.S. Department of Energy.
He wrote, "To appreciate the challenge of decarbonizing transport, see: 16 years since intro, hybrids are just 2 percent of U.S. auto sales—and falling from 2013 peak."
If you add back roughly 73,000 plug-in hybrids, last year's total for all types of hybrids rises to more than 420,000. On top of that, an additional 84,000 battery electric vehicles were sold—bringing the green-car total to more than half a million, out of a total market last year of 17.55 million. That's 2.85 percent of the total, or better than every hybrid market-share year except for the peak of 2013, when it was 3.2 percent. That said, the U.S. had higher gasoline prices in 2013 than it had during much of last year—and sales of conventional hybrid cars vary quite directly with gasoline price. . . .
The Bolt EV and other mass-priced electric cars to follow over the next two years will likely test the idea that "green cars" will remain a tiny niche in perpetuity. If those cars can sell better than today's green cars—the Toyota Prius lineup alone does more than 300,000 units in its best years—then perhaps they can appeal to a broader swath of the mass market. . . .