US hybrid car sales for April 2008 were 40,039 units. This figure shows a massive increase, in hybrid car purchases, of over 41 percent when compared to April 2007 figure of 28,330 units. When compared to the March 2008 figure of 38,214 units the increase is 4.77 percent.  The Prius hybrid electric sedan continues to dominate the hybrid car market with sales of 21,757 units, an increase of over 66 percent on the same period last year.

Combined April 2008 hybrid car sales for Toyota and Lexus totalled 32,841 units, an increase of 42 per cent over the April 2007 figure of 21,418 units. Toyota division reported hybrid car sales of 31,013 units with Lexus reporting sales of 1,828 units. The Camry hybrid , which was recently named the hybridcar.com “2008 hybrid car of the year”, sold 6,678 units, an increase of 40 per cent over the figure of 4,410 units for April 2007.

In 2007 Toyota hybrid car sales were over 400,000 units. Compare this to the cumulative global figure of 3,000 units in 1997 and it is easy to see that the vision and commitment of the Asian car maker has paid off in terms of being “first to market” for hybrids. Cumulative to date, global hybrid car sales for Toyota stood at over 1.3 million units at end of January 2008. It is staggering to realise that almost 33 per cent of that figure was achieved in 2007 alone.

WARREN, Mich. – Engineers at GM’s battery test facilities have developed a new computer algorithm to accelerate durability testing of the advanced lithium-ion batteries needed to power the Chevrolet Volt for up to 40 miles (64 km) of electric-only driving.This advanced computer program duplicates real-life vehicle speed and cargo-carrying conditions, and compresses 10 years of comprehensive battery testing into the Volt’s brisk development schedule.