SAN FRANCISCO – Pure electrical automobiles are making all of the headlines, however their gasoline-electric hybrid rivals quietly achieved report gross sales in america final 12 months, business knowledge confirmed.
Whereas the likes of Tesla Inc. and Ford Motor Co. pushed for electrical car gross sales, Asian automakers boosted hybrid car line-ups, as many shoppers nonetheless shun EVs as a result of increased costs, restricted driving vary or lack of charging stations.
U.S. gross sales of hybrid car gross sales jumped 76% to 801,550 autos final 12 months, accounting for five% of U.S. gentle car gross sales, in accordance with knowledge from analytics agency Wards Intelligence.
Gross sales of EVs additionally jumped 83% to 434,879, however represented a meager 3% of the market.
Toyota Motor Corp. posted report hybrid automobile gross sales for the U.S. market, serving to the Japanese automaker overtake Common Motors Co. because the top-selling U.S. automaker.
Toyota boosted gross sales of its hybrids, plug-ins and gasoline cells by 73% to 583,697, with most of them coming from hybrid. GM offered fewer than 25,000 electrical autos, because it recalled Bolt EVs as a result of battery hearth dangers.
“Hybrids supply a very intriguing mixture of gasoline financial system efficiency with out a number of the large drawbacks that electrical autos current,” Brett Smith, know-how director at Heart for Automotive Analysis, mentioned.
Pure EVs run solely on electrical energy and require charging infrastructure, whereas hybrid EVs mix a standard combustion engine with an electrical propulsion system.
Honda Motor Co., the No. 2 hybrid automobile vendor in America, additionally boosted hybrid gross sales by 67% in contrast with 2020 to a report 107,060 final 12 months.
“We hope to extend our hybrid gross sales of our core merchandise, CR-V and Accord, considerably within the coming years as we put together for battery electrical autos,” Dave Gardner, government vp at Honda, informed Reuters.
Honda, which plans to launch its first EV for the U.S. market in 2024, anticipated the market to take off due to a slew of recent mannequin launches by automakers and coverage assist by the Biden administration.
“It’s only a matter of time, however I feel client acceptance, it is going to take some time to catch as much as,” Gardner mentioned.
Hyundai Motor Co. sees hybrids and plug-in hybrids as “enablers” that may assist speed up gross sales of battery EVs, its international chief working officer, Jose Munoz, mentioned.
“A few of our opponents, they leap instantly into the battery EV solely … We nonetheless see many shoppers which might be hesitant in the case of moving into battery EV solely,” he mentioned.
IN PHOTO: A Honda Crider Sport Hybrid car is seen displayed on the GAC Honda sales space throughout a media day for the Auto Shanghai present in Shanghai, China April 19, 2021. REUTERS/Aly Music/File Picture
