Manufacturers of plug-in hybrids are getting good news; the popularity of the hybrid vehicles is at its peak.
And for cars such as the 2016 Toyota Prius and the 2016 Chevrolet Volt, it couldn’t come at a better time. Just after the two manufacturers announced their hybrid vehicles for the 2016 year, they are getting news that the sales of plug-in hybrids have eclipsed one million vehicles worldwide.
According to statistics, the biggest seller among those plug-in hybrids is the Nissan Leaf, another car that is getting new version for the 2016 model. The leaf accounts for more than 20% of the sold hybrid vehicles worldwide. Next car on the list is the Volt, which is excellent news for the 2016 Chevrolet Volt.
Following this, are the Tesla Model X and the Toyota Prius.
Out of those 1 million sold units, more than half, or 62% are battery powered electric vehicles. The other 38% are plug-in hybrids. Hybrid vehicles are most popular in the United States, where one third of the 1 million units were sold, followed by China and Japan. A surprise there is Norway, as the country ranks at No.5 for the number of sold plug-in hybrids.
Another impressive statistic is the timeline of the sales. More than 50% of the sales happened in the past year and a half. Considering the rise in popularity of the plug-in hybrids, the 2016 Chevrolet Volt can finally expect to sell more than 50,000 units in a year. While the Volt is an extremely popular vehicle, it manages to sell just a little over 10,000-15,000 units per year. But the 2016 Chevrolet Volt promises to be even better, with improved mileage, fuel efficiency and design and new technology goodies.
Compared to hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrids took half the time to reach the first big round number, the milestone of 1 million sales. Considering that December 2010 can be dubbed as “month zero”, the plug-in hybrids took less than four years to reach the milestone. December 2010 was the year when the first two plug-in hybrid vehicles arrived at car dealerships, the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt.
Toyota also has big plans for next year, with the 2016 Prius looking to be the best-seller. The company has also increased the mileage of the Prius up to 55 miles and both the exterior and interior look awesome.
One thing that companies should have in mind, when designing a plug-in hybrid vehicle is that the market is mostly limited on small and compact city and urban vehicles. Out of the four bestselling vehicles, only the Tesla Model S can be classified as a sedan, with the Leaf and Volt small, compact urban vehicles.
