If you're driving one of these now, the odds are better than ever your previous vehicle was a hybrid or an EV.
All of those new SUVs trundling down America’s roadways may have more in common than what meets the eye. With increasing frequency, those new sport-ute owners are former EV or hybrid devotees.
A new study from Edmunds.com shows that just 27.5% of all hybrids and electric vehicles traded in this year were swapped for another like model. It’s a substantive drop from the 38.5% from 2015.
And the vehicle they’re most likely to replace their gas sipper for? Yup, an SUV. Edmunds found that a hybrid or electric trade-in is more likely to go toward the purchase of a ute 33.8% more often than another hybrid or EV.
The trend is even more apparent when looking only at EV trade-ins – 25.7% of EV trade-ins went toward the purchase of a SUV, compared to just 4.8% that went toward another EV, Edmunds noted.
No other vehicle segment is even close: compacts or subcompacts are next at 12.1% with luxury cars (11.5%) and trucks (5.3%) following behind. Each of those numbers is an increase over year-ago results.
Sales of the Toyota RAV4 were up 15% in March. Former EV and hybrid owners are moving to more fuel efficient SUVs.
(China’s LeEco LeSEE may give clues as to upcoming Faraday Future EV. For more, Click Here.)
“The overwhelming popularity of SUVs trumps just about any other trend in today’s market,” said Edmunds.com Director of Industry Analysis Jessica Caldwell. “SUV sales are up 22% in the last five years, and almost every other segment has suffered as a result. It’s especially true for hybrids and EVs, which generally don’t offer the size that today’s shoppers crave.”
The drop in gas prices that began in the fall of 2014 began the shift away from more fuel efficient vehicles and that trend remains in place as gas prices remain in the low-$2 per gallon range on average across the U.S.
Adding to the move is the fact that all of these larger vehicles are getting better mileage than ever. Fuel economy numbers continue to improve for the U.S. fleet despite bigger vehicles overshadowing their more fuel-efficient counterparts.
According to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, the average fuel economy of cars sold in the U.S. in March was 25.3 mpg, up 25 percent from when the institute started tracking this number in October 2007.
(Click Here for details about the struggle automakers face with small car sales.)
Part of the reason for that is the type of SUV folks are moving into. Most of those making the switch from alt-fuel vehicles to SUVs are opting for the most fuel-efficient sub-segment of compact crossover SUVs. Edmunds found that 16.4% of hybrid and EV trade-ins this year went toward compact crossovers. By comparison, only about 1.4% went toward a large SUV or crossover SUV.
“This trend is not an indictment of the quality of these cars – hybrid and electric vehicles tend to be equipped with some of the most sought-after technology on the market today,” Caldwell said.
“This is an economics trend, since today’s low cost of gas no longer makes it worth paying the price premium of hybrids and EVs. And there are so many fuel-efficient vehicles on the market today that environmental concerns weigh less than they might have in years past. When you’re buying a vehicle that can get over 30 mpg, you can still say you’re doing your part to help the environment.”
Edmunds’ trade-in analysis comes at a time when overall electric and hybrid sales have struggled. The alt-fuel category saw a 10% drop from Q1 2015 to Q1 2016, while the overall industry saw a 3.3% lift during that time.
(Click Here for more on March U.S. auto sales.)
However, all is not lost in the fuel-efficient hybrid/EV segment – plug-in hybrids continue to perform well. A successful redesign of the Chevy Volt and the introduction of some new models like the Audi A3 Sportback e-tron and the Hyundai Sonata Plug-in have helped the segment’s sales jump more than 40%, from 7,652 sales in Q1 2015 to 10,932 sales in Q1 2016.