Hybrids and electrics will command attention at Philadelphia Auto Show

The auto industry is being reminded once again that if you build it, they will come - but not necessarily in the numbers the marketing department had hoped for.

Given the avalanche of new hybrids and electrics making their debuts on the auto-show circuit - and you'll see several of them when the Philadelphia Auto Show opens its nine-day run Saturday - you'd think electrified-vehicle sales were going into orbit.

But - thanks to the fact that gas is less than $4 a gallon and hybrid and electric cars are significantly more costly than their conventional counterparts - they definitely are not. The sales of these cars, like the price of gas, declined in 2011. Sales went from 2.4 percent of the car market in 2010 to 2.2 percent.

In the case of Toyota, whose Prius rules the hybrid-sales roost, the number sold dropped 3.2 percent.

"Part of that was inventory shortages caused by the tsunami [in Japan] and the floods in Thailand," said Wade Hoyt, a Toyota spokesman. "And part of it was gas. When gas prices go up, hybrid sales go up. When they drop or stabilize, then sales go down."

Because of the continuing effect of the gas prices and up-front hybrid costs, industry analysts don't feel there will be a significant rebound in hybrid/electric sales this year. (The cost differential between a hybrid and its conventional cousin can range from a few thousand dollars on lower-end cars to almost $9,000 for the hybrid version of the BMW 535i.)

All of which raises the question: Why are the manufacturers fielding a plethora of new electrified vehicles? Why will the regional debuts at the Philadelphia show include a redesigned Ford Fusion that will be sold as a plug-in hybrid as well as a hybrid, a Ford C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid, and a smaller Toyota hybrid called the Prius c?

First of all, few people in the auto industry expect gas prices not to keep going up. Global demand is increasing, and the supply of fossil fuel is finite. Though Hoyt's right when he says, "Gas prices are like a football - you don't know which way it is going to bounce," most experts feel they will trend upward. And when they do, hybrids and electrics will become more attractive.

In the meantime, automakers face a more immediate reason to develop and promote hybrids: They need them to meet the looming increases in government fuel-economy requirements.