Declining gas prices aren’t denting sales of alternative fuel vehicles.
Numbers from a recent Kelley Blue Book report [PDF] suggest so anyhow, indicating a surge of more than 164 percent in dedicated hybrid and other vehicles from this category in June when compared to the same time frame last year.
Though it is felt by the folks from Kelley that sales could continue to slow as a result of declining gas prices, it appears for the moment this decline will be relatively mild.
Sales are down from March 2012, which saw an all time high 35,687 vehicles like the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt sold at a time when the average national gas price was $3.85. For June, the volume of cars hovered around 23,778, with national gas prices averaging $3.54.
Leading the pack in this segment, not surprisingly, was the Toyota Prius hybrid family, with sales jumping more than 300 percent since June of last year. This has to do in part with the relatively recent introduction of the Prius c and wagon-like Prius v. Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus also saw significant uptake in its CT 200h hybrid.
As we’ve previously discussed, the Chevy Volt seems to be easily beating out the Nissan Leaf month over month of late. For 2012, Kelly said, this equates to an outsell ratio of nearly 3 to 1, despite the fact the price point is higher for the Volt than that of the Leaf.
Probably the best news out of all though for fans of these type of cars is that sales of alternative fuel vehicles, in general, look to remain stronger than in previous years. This suggests the category has long term staying power.
