Gas-electric car sales expected to rise in '10 (Detroit News)

[eppur_se_muova]

Christine Tierney / The Detroit News
Sales of fuel-efficient gas-electric hybrids are expected to rise next year, outpacing the U.S. auto market's overall growth, according to a new forecast.

Automotive research firm Edmunds.com predicted U.S. auto sales would recover modestly next year, to 11.5 million cars and light trucks from an estimated 10.3 million this year.

Its forecasters expect hybrids to outperform the market, even though they cost more, on average, than comparable gas-powered models.

Hybrids are expected to increase their share of the market to 3.2 percent in 2010 from around 2.8 percent this year, according to Edmunds. It expects the market share for hybrids to grow by about half a percentage point a year for the foreseeable future.

The share of diesel-powered light vehicles is expected to dip next year to 2.1 percent, from 2.2 percent this year, reflecting a reduction in the availability of diesel models due to more stringent emission rules coming into force.
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more: http://www.detnews.com/article/20091213/AUTO01/912130305/1148/Gas-electric-car-sales-expected-to-rise-in--10

[3waygeek]

1. Interesting...

This is the same Detroit News that earlier this week named a diesel their 2009 Car of the Year. If anything, the number of diesel models in the US is increasing -- Audi just introduced a new one (the aforementioned car of the year), and VW has just introduced a diesel Golf to the US. Audi is considering offering more diesels (A4 sedan and Q5 crossover) for 2011 & 2012, as are BMW and Mercedes. I've even heard speculation of diesel hybrids coming to the US soon.

The new Audi/VW diesels are in great demand, selling for greater than MSRP in places. I have an A3 TDI on order for delivery in February -- Audi can't make them fast enough to meet US demand. Demand for the new VW Golf TDI seems to be at least as great.

[n2doc]

2. The diesel A3 is awesome

For the life of me I can't figure out why the carmakers aren't jumping on this. Seems like they mostly want to make upmarket cars. Why aren't the big 3 making small Diesels?