Comparative rankings of hybrid cars are hard to find.In the first place, there aren't that many hybrids on the market to compare. And, secondly, they come in all different sizes and shapes, making ranking of hybrid cars very difficult.How do you judge the ranking, for example, of a small Toyota Prius, a luxury Lexus LS sedan compared to a full-sized Chevy Silverado? Other than being hybrid cars, they have very little else in common.But, it's important to have a comparison before buying. So, since I always love a challenge, here's my ranking of hybrid cars, which helped me tremendously while shopping around.To begin with, let's take a look at the best selling hybrid cars for the first six months of 2006. According to edmunds.com, they rank as follows:
Toyota Prius - 48,156 units
Toyota Highlander Hybrid - 18,127 units
Honda Civic Hybrid - 15,755 units
Lexus RX 400h - 11,193 units
Ford Escape Hybrid - 10,190 units
Toyota Camry Hybrid* - 7,386 units
Honda Accord Hybrid - 3,245 units
Mercury Mariner Hybrid - 1,461 units
Lexus GS 450h - 525 units
10. Honda Insight - 489 units
* (The Toyota Camry Hybrid was newly released in May 2006, but sales in May and June were already second only to the Prius.)It's easy to see that Toyota hybrid cars are the best sellers. The Prius and the Highlander, for example, account for nearly 50% of the entire U.S. hybrid market. When you add in the future figures for the new Camry, that share will increase and Toyotas will clearly dominate.Since the Honda Insight was first introduced in 2000, Honda's sales of hybrid cars have increased by more than 2,000%. In 2005, over 205,000 cars were sold and it looks like close to 250,000 will be sold in 2006.Hybrids still only account for about 1% of the total U.S. car market, but most experts predict that's going to change rapidly. It's easy to see why. For economic, environmental and political reasons, more and more Americans are looking for fuel efficient automobiles. And, out of the top ten fuel efficient cars, the first three were green machines. They were:
Honda Insight - 60 mpg city, 66 mpg highway
Toyota Prius - 60 mpg city, 51 mpg highway
Honda Civic Hybrid - 49 mpg city, 51 mpg highway
There's another way we can compare hybrid cars. And that's by looking at which hybrids received the coveted Consumer Reports recommendation. According to their most recent Consumer Reports publication (before the Camry was introduced), the recommended hybrid cars are the following:
Toyota Prius - small sedan
Honda Civic Hybrid - small sedan
Honda Accord Hybrid - family sedan
Lexus RX 400h - mid-size SUV
Lexus GS450h - luxury sedan
Toyota Highlander Hybrid - mid-size SUV
Those that weren't recommended are as follows:
Honda Insight - compact sedan
Ford Escape Hybrid - small SUV
Chevy Silverado - full-size pickup
Mercury Mariner Hybrid - small SUV
GMC Sierra - full-size pickup
Saturn Vue - small SUV
So there you have it - my ranking of hybrid cars. Hope this research helps you as much as it helped me.
