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Wheels

With Gas Prices Less of a Worry, Buyers Pass Hybrid Cars By

Erik Tufteland and his girlfriend, Theresa Hammond, rode in his recently purchased Subaru Forester to Red Rock Canyon in Nevada.Credit...Emily Wilson for The New York Times

Affordable gasoline is making hybrid car owners rethink their loyalty.

With bargain gasoline prices putting more money in the pockets of Americans, owners of hybrids and electric vehicles are defecting to sport utility vehicles and other conventional models powered only by gasoline, according to Edmunds.com, an auto research firm.

There are limits, it appears, to how far consumers will go to own a car that became a rolling statement of environmental concern. In 2012, with gas prices soaring, an owner could expect a hybrid to pay back its higher upfront costs in as little as five years. Now, that oft-calculated payback period can extend to 10 years or more.

“We’d all like to save the environment, but maybe not when it costs hundreds of dollars per year,” said Jessica Caldwell, director of industry analysis for Edmunds.com.

Erik Tufteland of Las Vegas traded his trusty 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid for a 2014 Subaru Forester. He wanted an all-wheel-drive vehicle that could better handle ski and snowboard trips. Mr. Tufteland was also growing anxious over the possibility of one day needing to replace the Honda’s expensive hybrid battery.

“My lifestyle changed,” Mr. Tufteland said. “And while the hybrid was great around the city, on mountain roads it was a white-knuckle experience.”

Mr. Tufteland assumed he would dearly miss the 45 miles per gallon economy of his Honda, but said the trade-offs ultimately were not worth the modest fuel savings.

“I wish I had that extra 12 miles per gallon, but I’d still rather have the Forester any day,” he said. “The fuel costs aren’t that different, and the Subaru is so much more functional in terms of space, comfort and the ability to get me anywhere. It’s really the perfect car for me.”

In all, 55 percent of hybrid and electric vehicle owners are defecting to a gasoline-only model at trade-in time — the lowest level of hybrid loyalty since Edmunds.com began tracking such transactions in 2011. More than one in five are switching to a conventional sport utility vehicle, nearly double the rate of three years ago.

That one-and-done syndrome coincides with tumbling sales of electric and hybrid vehicles. Through April, sales of electrified models slid to 2.7 percent of the market, down from 3.4 percent over the same period last year, Edmunds.com said. At the same time, sport utility vehicles grabbed 34.4 percent of sales, up from 31.6 percent.

There is little mystery behind the shift in sentiment. To the delight of every fast-pumping American, a gallon of regular gasoline has fallen to $2.66 on average, from nearly $4 in 2012, according to the Oil Price Information Service. The federal Energy Department figures that the average household will save $750 on fuel bills this year. Those flush households can afford to expand their car-shopping horizons, with less anxiety over a model’s thirst for fuel.

At that $4-per-gallon high in 2012, a Toyota Camry Hybrid buyer driving 15,000 miles a year could save enough in fuel to break even in five years on the $3,800 price premium versus a conventional Camry. Today, that owner would have to keep the Camry Hybrid for nine years, nearly twice as long as before, to pay back its higher price.

Before hybrid fans accuse their brethren of automotive treason, the former hybrid owners are not exactly trading Toyota Priuses for Cadillac Escalades.

The universe of sport utility vehicles — once rife with gas-guzzling land yachts — has expanded to include wildly popular compact and even subcompact models whose fuel economy has jumped by up to a third in less than a decade. Even the biggest S.U.V.s, pickups and sedans have toned down their thirst, giving buyers better reasons — or a handy excuse — to choose a larger, more capable vehicle.

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Erik Tufteland, who once drove a Honda Civic Hybrid, said fuel costs didn't change much when he switched to a Subaru Forester.Credit...Emily Wilson for The New York Times

“When you can get a midsize sedan that gets you 35 m.p.g., there aren’t many compelling reasons to buy a hybrid,” said Akshay Anand, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book.

Tougher competition and diminishing returns at the pump, Mr. Anand said, are big reasons that sales of Toyota’s Prius — long the undisputed king of hybrids — slid 11.5 percent last year to about 207,000.

Consumers are also more inured to spikes in fuel prices, Mr. Anand said, and are prioritizing factors like room, creature comforts or the reassuring all-wheel-drive and ride height of an S.U.V.

“There’s a new normal, and if gas goes back to $3.50 a gallon, it’s ‘Been there, done that’ for consumers,” Mr. Anand said.

Scott Vazin, a Toyota spokesman, acknowledged that there was more technological parity today, but said Toyota had faith in its expanding hybrid lineup.

“We still see hybrid as a clear advantage in overall efficiency,” he said. “They might not be the flavor of the month, but we know where fuel prices are going, and that it’s a finite resource.”

Toyota’s dominance in hybrids remains unchallenged, with Toyota and its Lexus luxury division selling nearly 70 percent of hybrids in America. And with an all-new 2016 Prius heading to showrooms by roughly year’s end, some consumers are holding out until it arrives, analysts said.

For automakers like General Motors, the shift is helping the bottom line. Stronger truck sales alone added $500 million to General Motors’ $2.2 billion first-quarter profit in North America, the best showing since the company exited bankruptcy in 2009. Sales of Chevrolet’s Volt plug-in hybrid fell nearly 19 percent last year, to 18,805 cars.

Yet Pamela Fletcher, General Motors’ executive chief engineer for electrified vehicles, said that G.M. was also taking the long view with its electrified fleet.

“We can’t say, ‘Just kidding, we’re going to put this Volt on the shelf and see where gas prices go,’ ” Ms. Fletcher said.

Instead, G.M. is readying an all-new 2016 Volt for showrooms this fall. Like other automakers, G.M. is striving to cut costs and improve performance of its electrified models to make them more competitive.

Last week, G.M. announced that this fall’s Volt would start at $33,995, $1,175 less than its predecessor, or $26,495 after a $7,500 federal tax rebate.

The sleekly redesigned Volt also promises an improved 50-mile range on electricity alone and higher overall fuel economy, along with room for five passengers instead of four.

Ms. Fletcher noted that hybrid and all-electric loyalists find advantages beyond dollars and cents, from smooth, silent electric operation to the convenience of bypassing the pump to charge at home. And with fuel prices increasing again, industry executives, including Ms. Fletcher, see a return to costly gasoline as merely a matter of time.

But until they experience pain at the pump again, more Americans are adopting an outlook that seems more suited to the 1970s: Keep on Truckin’.

A correction was made on 
May 14, 2015

An earlier version of this article misstated the top price of a gallon of gasoline in 2012. It was nearly $4, not $4.67.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Passing Up the Hybrids. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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