Apr 9 2008
Going green is all the rage, so it's not surprising that searches for hybrid vehicles on Cars.com are at an all-time high. In fact, a recent Cars.com survey showed that 59% of car shoppers have purchased or would consider purchasing a hybrid as their next car(1).
So which cities are the greenest when it comes to car shopping? According to the Cars.com Green Index, a ranking of hybrid vehicle searches by market, West Coast shoppers show the greatest interest in going green. San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Sacramento and San Diego make up the top five. In each of these markets, hybrids account for more than 3 percent of new car searches on Cars.com. While West Coast cities seem to embrace hybrid vehicles more than their counterparts in the Midwest and on the East Coast, cities in the South lag behind most major cities in the country, with Houston, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Birmingham and Miami rounding out the bottom five.
“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. “The Cars.com Green Index also shows that interest is high in markets that are traditionally concerned with environmental issues, such as Denver and Minneapolis, and those plagued by traffic and congestion, such as Washington, D.C., and Boston."
Note
- Survey conducted for Cars.com by Impulse Research Corp. The survey was conducted online with a random sample of 1,033 men and women 18+ who own cars.