Do Canadians Hate Hybrids?
Published: August 23rd, 2010
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It seems unlikely: Canadians prefer smaller cars and those with high fuel efficiency, but they’re shunning hybrids. Monvolant, via autoblog, reports that Honda will be dropping the Insight and Civic hybrid models, due to poor sales. Only 748 Insights have found Canuck buyers, and even fewer Civic Hybrids. Honda had planned to sell 10k Insights in Canada this year. Pop!
The Insight has been a major sales disappointment stateside too. But here’s the real shocker: Only 2,272 Toyota Prius have been sold in Canada through July of this year. Are the Canadians hybriphobic? Or just genuinely frugal? (The two top selling cars in Canada are the Civic and the Corolla)
More by Paul Niedermeyer
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Cars are much higher priced in Canada..This made more sense 10 years ago when the Canadian dollar was worth only $.60, but now with the money almost at par prices haven't gone down. Then add 13% HST sales tax. Perhaps that's why you can buy a BMW 3 series with a 2.5 litre engine or a Mark IV Jetta or Golf called the City with 2.o litre engines. Hell, here in Buffalo even a case of Labatt Blue is only $17.00, half the price that Torontonians pay.
Canadians are cheap? News to me. Alrighty canucks, lets clear this up. We aren't cheap. We know when we are getting ripped of (i.e. hybrid pricing) and we don't bite. In addition, have you seen our housing prices compared to the US? If we were all cheap we would live in shacks. Maybe then our prices would be equal. Plus, we don't make any more but lose a tonne in taxes. We aren't cheap, we just don't have loads to blow on overpriced and troubled hybrid technology when we have a very significant social network to support.
Maybe Toyota can increase Prius sales in Canada by changing the material they use to construct the car!
I currently live in Hamilton, ON so here are my reasons why I am not interested in a hybrid: 1. They cost too much. Yes, there is a premium here in southern Ontario on these cars. Yes, there is an exchange rate with the US that usually adds another 10-20% onto the MSRP. Add up all these little things (without a whole lot of government incentives) and it doesn't make sense to get one. 2. Salt and Cold weather. In southern Ontario, we have "moderate" winters with temperatures even better than say Buffalo! Still, 30s, 40s for weeks on end does create inefficiencies in the battery of a hybrid. The real killer to all cars is the salt southern Ontario puts on their roads. With moderate winters and salt, the roads are usually caked with this very salty slush. It rusts a car like nothing. Are you going to get 10years worth of utility out of the hybrid body in this weather? Probably not. 3. Traffic Patterns of all kinds. Sure, during the week the urban congestion around Hamilton, Toronto is hard to take. There are just as many miles put on a car on the weekends when people flee the cities for their cottages, camps, beaches hundreds of miles away. Your regular weekday car has to have the capability of being an efficient fuel sipper for the weekdays but then hope in them on Friday night and drive 100 miles or more for a cottage weekend. The hybrid market, being upscale, is targetting that cottage going crowd and if the manufacturers don't get that kind of driving demand, they aren't going to sell here.