American Buyers Turning Increasingly to Hybrid Vehicles

tax breaks or availibility......around here its both, most of the lots are pretty empty behind the "street view" first row
 
It's certainly not the case here. I'll see one now and again, but not many. One of our good customers has a Prius since he's a travelling salesman.

Availability? Visit a Buick dealer! They've got thousands of unsold '23 gas models still darkening their lots.. assuming you can find a Buick dealer. :ROFLMAO:

When the automakers start taking hybrids seriously, so will I. I'm still waiting for a scaled-down diesel locomotive arrangement.
 
ditto on the diesel loco setup..to this day im shocked it hasnt been done

round here if you look passed the front row youll find 75% of the dealers are simply out of everything..theres more options USED than new at this point and its driven used prices BONKERS
 
Cox Automotive said:
Buick remains one of the most affordable brands on the market, with an average listing price of $32,689. However, the company has a decent supply of MY2023 cars, keeping them at around 71 days’ supply. While this is high, it’s still below the industry average of 74.
Click to expand...
That's a wee bit misleading, really. Perhaps "decent supply" should be changed to "glut" in terms of MY2023 cars, and the "below the industry average" 71-day supply is regarding 2024 models. That's an ugly place to be with the 2025 models nearly ready to ship.

The Dodge/Jeep thing isn't surprising to me a'tall. Dodge discontinuing the perennial best-selling Caravan a few years ago was a complete choke move. Since then, they threw all their "effort" into the long-outdated, niche Charger/Challenger and Durango. The new but unloved Hornet ("hey, we own AMC's heritage and haven't once whored it. Fix that.") isn't enough to carry a marque. All of Dodge's effort in '23 was centered on "last call" models of the LX cars (or whatever new code name they applied to the '95 Mercedes S-class). Everyone loves a cool car, but 90% of people walking into dealers need solid, economical daily transport. They could choose from the Hornet, or... the Durango? Well, the Durango's a bit upmarket, so that leaves the me-so-Hornet. Poor dealers.
It's worth noting that in the article, they mention "Ram, Jeep and Dodge" and then completely leave out any further mention of Ram. No surprise there; trucks sell.
Jeep has the opposite problem: Too many options. What cachet the brand once held was largely killed by a proliferation of cheap, cookie-cutter Dodge platform mates for more than a decade. Now you have the Renegade and Compass stepping on each others' toes, similar to the CJ7/CJ8--er, Wrangler/Gladiator. They completely missed the mark with the Cherokee, once a beloved poor-man's SUV (in XJ form) that they haven't been able to give away, which is still languishing on lots despite being out of production for 17 months now. The Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer is the station wagon nobody asked them to build. More correctly, it's the wagon for which Dodge owners have been begging for years--decades even--but it's not a Dodge. Those shopping Yukons, Suburbans, Expeditions et al? The word "Jeep" never enters their mind.
And that's Jeep's problem: Brand recognition, or lack thereof, outside the Wrangler. My brother recently bought a brand-new Chevrolet Colorado 4-door. I asked him what other models he shopped, and there weren't any. A suitable Ranger wasn't available (supply-chain issues) and the Dakota's been gone for more than a decade, killed largely by woefully-ugly styling after 2004. What about the Jeep Gladiator? "I didn't want a Jeep, I wanted a truck."

To me it's fairly apparent that Stellantis' goal is to eliminate the Chrysler marque entirely. Dodge will be reduced to a niche builder for as long as that remains fiscally viable, and Jeep will be their bread-and-butter former Chrysler Corp brand. They have plenty of Fiats and Peugeots to sell, and it's likely we'll see those branded as Dodges in North America after the Hornet and new Charger/Charger EV (disCharger?) fail to set the world afire.

It's sad, really, that Chrysler Corporation went away. They had the world by the tail in '97 and knew what to do with the company. Plymouth was already on the block at that point, Jeep was the niche truck-y marque, Dodge was the straight-ahead truck and Ordinary Average Guy car brand, and Chrysler was for Thurston and Lovey Howell. One wonders what bright future was stomped out by the Nazi takeover.
 
Not much on the new car lots here beyond the first row, like 69.5 said, and those aren't selling.
Price and selection is the stall-point here. Want a fully loaded Ram 4x4 four door with a Hemi? Lots of those. Want a single cab, 2 wheel drive, with any options? Sorry, you'll have to upgrade to a much larger and more profitable 4x4 four door with that Hemi. Oh, and bring your chequebook... it's gonna cost ya!
We briefly looked at vans this spring. The selection is very limited, and be prepared to pass over roughly $75k of your hard earned dollars if you want stuff like leather power seats on both sides (a must for most chair users}.
Cars? Good luck, unless you look at imports.
EV? Honestly, we'll be seriously looking at a hybrid for the next buy, but that will likely be 4 or 5 years down the road, if not more. Right now, they too are out of most buyer's reach around here.
 
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