This complements Nerfer's post. Shiny Graphic Full article Thanks to DaveinOlyWa for letting me post this (I see he's already made a comment on GCC).
So the Prius is about half of all hybrid sales. I guess it's a good thing there are more choices now for consumers, but I would still like to see more models that get >30 mpg. And kudos for knowing the difference between complement and compliment.
I find it interesting that there was such a noticeable downswing from May-to-September. Skimming the article, I didn't see a reason or explanation. It looks to me as though 2007 was truly a roller coater year for hybrids: March-to-April dropped where it increased in every previous year. The same for May-to-September with August and September presenting the first time one year's sales are lower than the previous year's sales. Would anyone care to venture a guess as to what caused this?
That got me thinking, so I added the numbers from the shiny graphic (actually from the chart below) into my excel sheet on gas prices I've paid over the same time frame (well, my numbers go farther back, but this is the shared region of the two charts). I'm not sure the best way to import an Excel chart into PriusChat, but hopefully this is readable. If I find the numbers for the Prius sales (I've seen them here before, awhile back), I'll add that too. End result, there is a surprising correlation. I thought at best there'd be a delayed reaction, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, one reason for the drop after Aug '06 was the reduction in tax benefits on the Prius.
Now that's a good chart!!!! Keep in mind while the locals here at PriusChat understand this, the analysts at GM, Ford, and other manufacturers really worry about what is shown here. Their charts and analysis will be a lot more detailed and manipulated, but would be unable to hide the truth of the situation. (P.S. What is going up in this chart is going down in other charts.)
TonyPSchaefer posted a similar graph a few months ago. The funny thing is that in the late summer the price of oil was sky high (though petrol prices weren't that bad) and I'd have thought that that would have pushed sales up a bit.
We should probably compare the data to data for all car sales as well, it could be that car sales were just more of a roller coaster this year than previous years...
