If you were to go by gas prices, 2016 shouldn’t have been a particularly good year for plug-in hybrid sellers. However, despite huge lows in gas prices brought on by increasing production and exports, plug-in hybrid manufacturers appear to have had a good year. Ford for example, said that it had marked a rise of 38 percent in the sale of its hybrid cars during 2016.
So Ford managed to sell 23,895 hybrids last year — which doesn’t sound like much with respect to the number of normal cars sold by manufacturers. However, when you stop to consider the fact that the company doesn’t really have a presence in that many markets yet, well, it is a healthy figure. Ford is planning to change the market dynamics soon enough, and is hoping to focus upon expanding it range of offerings to other markets by 2020.
The company currently has 5 cars in its roster, including Fusion Hybrid, C-MAX Hybrid, C-MAX Energy, Fusion Energy and Focus Electric. Thanks to a strong surge in sales of the Fusion Energy, Ford was able to reach a record ownership of 18 percent of the electrified vehicle market in 2016.
Ford’s data is interesting because it gives us our first good look into the hybrid market at the end of 2016. What’s more, 2016 wasn’t really a particularly good year for car sales that dipped sharply in face of strong growth from SUV and crossovers. Meanwhile, as unbelievable as it sounds today, the plug-in hybrid market could well rival that of normal cars someday. There is a lot of growth left though and the increasing dynamic of global oil production and the evolution of new technologies will have a huge impact upon where the market finds itself in say, a decade from now.
Meanwhile, we can expect more from Ford in the coming years. Apart from growing its reach in terms of market, the company also hopes to expand its range of offerings to 13 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2020.
