Total US Hybrid Sales Drop in October; Prius Sales Climb 21%

In a month of overall declines, Prius sales still increased. US hybrids turned in their worst aggregate sales month since June, when all the models now on sale were first concurrently on the market, and the third-lowest of the year. October saw 16,934 units sold, 27% down from August’s peak of 23,307, and 12% down from September’s 19,180 units.

With the overall decline in combined light duty vehicle sales of 14% from September to October, however, hybrids managed to nudge up their total market share very slightly from 1.45% in September to 1.48% in October.

Toyota not only was once again the leader in hybrid sales in October, it increased its combined unit sales to 14,173 from 13,021 the month before, a jump of 8.8%. The Prius did the heavy lifting, with 9,939 units sold (a 21% increase from the prior month), while the Highlander and Rx400h hybrids saw slight declines to 2,330 and 1,904 respectively.

Hybrids represented 8.2% of all Toyota vehicles sold in September, up from 7.3% in September.

Honda saw the most severe drop in hybrid sales, with the Civic hybrid plummeting to only 231 units in advance of the roll-out of the new 2006 Civic hybrid. In August, sales of the Civic hybrid reached 4,146 units.

The Honda Accord hybrid dropped down to 1,266 units, and the Insight to 37. Despite those drops, however, Honda hybrids increased their share of all Honda light duty vehicles sold in September to 4.0%, up from 3.6% the month before.

Ford also saw a drop in sales of its Escape hybrid, down to 1,227 units in September. That pushed hybrids as a percentage of Ford total sales down to 0.6%, from 0.8% the month before.