Honolulu middling in hybrid search rank
Interest in hybrid cars is growing across the nation as going green goes mainstream and gasoline prices rise, but interest in Honolulu is only middling.
Honolulu ranked No. 40 out of 100 metropolitan areas, with hybrids accounting for 2.58 percent of new car searches on the Chicago-based automotive Web site Cars.com, according to a survey released today.
Rankings were calculated based on the number of hybrid searches in a market as a percentage of all new-car searches in the market.
Hybrid searches are at an all-time high, according to cars.com, with a recent survey showing that 59 percent of car shoppers have purchased or would consider purchasing a hybrid as their next car.
The Cars.com Green Index found that West Coast auto shoppers were the most interested in going green, with San Francisco ranking No. 1, with 5.6 percent hybrid car purchases, followed by Portland, Ore., with 4.7 percent hybrid car purchases, and Seattle, with 3.9 percent hybrid car purchases.
"Gas prices definitely play a role in hybrid interest, because West Coast cities traditionally have higher gas prices on average than the rest of the country," said cars.com editor in chief Patrick Olsen.
He added that interest also appears high in markets traditionally concerned with environmental issues, such as Denver and Minneapolis, and those plagued by traffic, such as Washington, D.C., and Boston.
Cars.com, online classified vehicle listings, was launched in 1998, and claims to be visited by more than 10 million car shoppers a month.
Hybrid vigor
A partial list of the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas ranked by percentage of automobile Web searches for hybrid vehicles.
| Rank |
Location |
City Size |
Percentage of Searches |
| 1 |
San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose |
6 |
5.62 |
| 2 |
Portland, Ore. |
23 |
4.78 |
| 3 |
Richmond-Petersburg, Va. |
59 |
4.47 |
| 4 |
Seattle-Tacoma |
14 |
3.98 |
| 5 |
Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto |
20 |
3.97 |
| |
| 39 |
Chicago |
3 |
2.60 |
| 40 |
Honolulu |
73 |
2.58 |
| 41 |
Spokane |
77 |
2.58 |
| |
| 96 |
New Orleans |
53 |
1.54 |
| 97 |
Jackson, Miss. |
90 |
1.49 |
| 98 |
Shreveport, La. |
82 |
1.36 |
| 99 |
Harlingen-Weslaco-Brownsville-McAllen, Texas. |
88 |
1.12 |
| 100 |
Charleston-Huntington, W. Va. . |
65 |
0.95 |
Source: Cars.com
