Marketing Research: Green Marketing
Are Hybrid Cars Worth The Money?
By
Josh Nottingham
Tyler Alberson
Lei Ye
James Chimitt
Introduction:
Over the course of the past few decades, Hybrid cars have slowly been multiplying on the road. General Motors sold 11,000 Chevrolet Volts in 2010 and are expecting that number to rise to 70,000 by next year (J.D. Power and Associates, 2012). The total percentage of Hybrid cars that cruise the road only makes up 3% of the entire automobile industry, but is expected to triple by the year 2015. There has been an immense debate over whether it’s worth spending the money to purchase a Hybrid car over a standard vehicle.
What is a Hybrid Car?
First built in the early 1900s, Hybrid vehicles are defined as a car that runs on two sources of power. The most common Hybrid vehicle combines a gasoline engine with an electric motor, which is known as a Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV). While most people consider this to be a recent invention, the technology has been around since the development of the first car. In fact, the first Hybrid car was created in 1899.
The Beginning of Hybrids:
The first Hybrid car was created by an engineer Ferdinand Porsche, which was named the System Lohner-Porsche Mixte. This vehicle used the combination of a gasoline engine to supply power to an electric motor. Surprisingly, the Mixte had over 300 produced, but once Henry Ford started the first assembly line in 1904, the demand for Hybrids slowly diminished. The main reason the demand decreased was due to the fact that Ford was able to sell gasoline engine vehicles for less and they produced more power.
The Rebirth of Hybrids:
After almost fifty years later, the United States congress introduced legislation that encouraged using more electric vehicles to attempt reducing the air pollution in the 1960s. Over the next thirty years, auto manufacturers spent billions of dollars researching the development of