Toyota Prius wins again but are hybrid cars on their way out?

It’s hard to tell exactly where the hybrid car industry is going to go. Just a few years ago, hybrid cars were on the rise to offset the steadily increasing gas prices. Then, murmurs of electric cars generated overwhelming enthusiasm for the prospect of never spending another dollar at the gas pump. Now, electric cars are hitting the streets and hybrids feel a bit in no man’s land between the common gasoline engine and the idealistic electric car.

Statistics show that hybrids peaked in 2007 before the gas price explosion in 2008 and before the worst periods of the longest recession since WWII. Last year, hybrids had fallen 17% since that time to around 289,000 cars.

So why is the industry so hard to understand when the hybrid trend is clearly downward?

The reality is some hybrid manufacturers are thriving while others are falling by the wayside.

According to USA Today, the sales through the first seven months of the year of the Ford Escape hybrid were down 23.7 % while the hybrid Honda Civic sales were down 72%. Obviously, the Escape and the Civic had to have had positive numbers last year to be so far down this year, but the trend is certainly not good for some major manufacturers.

The reputable Toyota Prius on the other hand saw an increase of just about 4% over the first seven months of the year. The Prius has enjoyed about a 50% hybrid market share for almost the entire life of the vehicle and it appears, at least for now, that it is carrying to some extent hybrid vehicles altogether.

While hybrids are trending down, Toyota believes it will be able to reach cumulative sales of 5 million by 2015. To put that in perspective, Toyota hopes to sell about 1 million hybrid cars a year.

To do so, Toyota is making a few moves that make a whole lot of sense.

First, it plans on introducing a hybrid option across its entire line of vehicles. While statistics indicate other manufacturers are failing in the hybrid arena, Toyota is not and can take its hybrid reputation and use it to its advantage for other vehicles.

Second, it plans on increasing the efficiency of all its vehicles by 25% of the 2005 levels. If consumers are looking to make a big jump and cut out dollars at the pump, they need to have a legitimate reason, in MPGs, to buy a Toyota hybrid.

Finally, Toyota continues to make all the right moves in getting consumers to trust the brand once again. The latest innovation to include a noisemaker under the hood to make pedestrians aware of the oncoming Prius is just one way Toyota was able to respond to the legitimate safety concerns of quiet hybrids in heavily populated areas.

For now, it appears hybrid cars are somewhat dependent on the success of the Toyota Prius.