Alternative fuel vehicle sales for December 2007 (and end-of-year sales)

I will settle on a design for these graphs, I promise. This is looking like the most concise way to display the data right now, so I’ll probably stick with this – full credit to Google Docs for providing me with a place to store, analyse and display this information.

On with the actual data. The graph above shows the pertinent statistics for alternative fuel vehicle sales for the last six months.  Some points of note:

• Total alternative fuel vehicle sales reached a six-month high in December, driven largely by private passenger diesel sales, which were up 19% over November and a massive 133% higher than December 2006.
• The holiday period showed a slight drop of 7.5% in hybrid sales, but this was largely due to a reduction in the number of fleet sales. Private hybrid purchases increased 33% in December, up 82% from the same time last year.
• 4WDs/SUVs showed a slight drop across all alternative fuel categories in December, reaching a plateau after a strong increase through 2007.
• LPG model sales continue to drop across all categories, particularly in private vehicles.

This also marks the end of a year in which over one million vehicles were sold for the first time ever in Australia. How did alt-fuel vehicles fare in a year of rising fuel prices and increasing concerns about climate change?

Total alternatively fuelled vehicles (comprising diesels, hybrids and LPG) made up 10.4% of total passenger and SUV sales for 2007, increasing from 8.25% in 2006. Diesels spearheaded the charge this year, jumping 44% in year-total sales, mostly from private buyers. Fleet sales also noticed a considerable jump in both the diesel and hybrid categories as organisations moved to reduce their carbon footprint and fuel costs. LPG vehicles were, predictably, the only market to drop – the initial effect of the Federal government’s rebate wore off over the last twelve months. Hybrids recorded the greatest percentage increase in 2007, increasing 56% over 2006 sales figures.

Time will tell what’s in store for 2008. With any luck we may even see a new fuel category show up on these graphs, but if fuel prices continue to rise we’re only likely to see these numbers continue to increase.

(Source: FCAI)

Share this post :