A new Harris poll, along with sales data, seems to show that the total number of electrified vehicles (hybrids, battery electrics, plug-ins) may have peaked.
Sales of electrified vehicles – including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and battery electrics – totaled about half a million units per year for 2013 and 2014 and are likely to see about the same this year as well, with not quite 300,000 having been sold at the end of July. That puts the total number of electrified vehicles at about 3 percent of the overall market, which is about what it was in 2012. Now a new Harris Poll seems to bear out the idea that the electrified vehicle market may have peaked.
The poll has been issued every year for the past several years and findings have remained consistent. Just under half of those considering buying a car say they’d consider a traditional hybrid. This interest wanes when the choice is a plug-in (hybrid or battery electric). The number of those interested in diesel as an option rose by three percent to 19 percent, but those interested in smaller-displacement gasoline-powered cars were down by the same amount (to 35 percent).
