Tough environment for eco-friendly Ford?

It has taken two years, but Toyota's locally-built hybrid sedan is beginning to achieve the sales numbers Toyota set for it previously.

But Ford, much more circumspect about the Falcon EcoBoost's sales projections at its launch earlier this year — and since then — will hardly be surprised by the unrewarding sales so far for its turbocharged four-cylinder sedan.

The Toyota and the Ford were introduced barely a month apart earlier this year. Ford may be experiencing with the four-cylinder Falcon the same buyer resistance Toyota has been encountering with the petrol/electric Camry since its debut in an earlier generation, around two years ago. Time seems to be breaking down that resistance for Toyota however, whereas the Falcon needs more time for word of mouth to boost its stocks.

If there's one inference to be drawn from the latest VFACTS sales figures, it's that the Camry Hybrid was introduced to the local market before buyers were ready for it. Or perhaps buyers have found the new model more appealing for a host of other reasons. Toyota launched the previous model Camry Hybrid back in 2010. At the time, the company boldly declared it expected to build 10,000 units of the petrol/electric sedan at the Altona plant. But that forecast, which Toyota exec David Buttner later conceded was a 'stretch goal', has never been achieved. Nor has the company's ambitious plans to sell more of the Hybrid models to private buyers come to fruition.

Things are changing however.

In 2010 the previous model Camry Hybrid sold fewer than 7000 units, a long way shy of the forecast. And prior to that car even being launched, Mr Buttner was anticipating private sales as high as 40 per cent of the total. In reality just 24 per cent of Camry Hybrid buyers in that first year were private owners.

If Toyota had expected word of mouth to spread the following year — and sales to pick up accordingly — the company would have been sorely disappointed. Over the full 12 months the Camry Hybrid sold 5204 units, and private buyers accounted for an even smaller share of that total, less than 18 per cent.

Sales for the first two months of 2012 were heading further south again — admittedly in a run-out period leading up to the launch of the new-generation model. The previous Camry Hybrid sold just 551 units in January and February combined. Then the new model arrived in March...

Private buyer share has been steadily rising since the introduction of the new model, according to VFACTS figures from March to June. In particular, June has been a cracker of a month for the Camry Hybrid. Total sales rose to 644 units for the month, with private buyers making up 195 of those. That's a 30 per cent share of the total. For the four months the new model has been on sale, the numbers have added up to 2428 units, of which 601 have gone to private homes —an average of 25 per cent, but on the rise.

VFACTS figures for the Falcon EcoBoost can be tracked back to February — two months prior to the official media launch. Across that five-month time span Ford has sold 408 EcoBoost Falcons, against 5915 units of all Falcons — 6.9 per cent of the total. And the four-cylinder models were outsold by 465 FPV cars during the same period.

But work out the calculations for the period the Falcon EcoBoost has been officially on sale and things look better for the new drivetrain variant. 357 units out of the 3448 Falcons sold since April inclusive amounts to 10.4 per cent. It falls well short of Toyota's Camry tally for the same period: 5775 cars sold, of which 29 per cent were hybrids, but Ford can take heart from this salient point: the whole history of the automotive industry in Australia has been one of glacial response to new technology or a new marketing tactic, but once the consumer is hooked, it becomes an avalanche of sales.

In 2006, just 5.4 per cent of all vehicles sold that year were diesel-engined SUVs or passenger cars. By the end of 2011, the figure had grown to 13 per cent. For the first six months of this year, it's 15.2 per cent of the total. New-car buyers can't get enough diesels, it seems, and hybrid sales are beginning to grow along the same lines too.

So Australians will adapt over time, but perhaps the real problem confronting the Falcon EcoBoost currently is not the new technology. Maybe it's the legacy reputation left by cars such as Holden's Starfire-powered Commodores from the 1980s. A perceived dearth of power might be a harder issue to overcome in the showroom than doing the right thing for the environment and the personal finances.

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