The Prius received $15.5 million in “total media value” through the first four months of the year, trampling the second-place Honda Fit EV’s $4.5 million. Those models were followed by the Chevrolet Volt, Tesla Model S and Honda Insight, each of which generated about $3 million worth of social-media value through April.
The report tracked model mentions via sources such as Facebook, YouTube and Google, and found that the Prius, the world’s best-selling hybrid, had more Twitter mentions than the next nine most-mentioned green-car models combined. Factoring positive or not-so-positive social-media “sentiment,” the Nissan Leaf came out on top, followed by the Fit and then the Prius
Of course, chatter doesn’t always translate into moving cars out the door. Through April, US Prius sales across all variants were down 12 percent from a year earlier, down to almost 76,000 units.
