President Barack Obama – well, technically the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) – is responsible for purchasing almost a quarter of all the hybrid vehicles that Ford and General Motors sold in the U.S. in the last two years. The GSA, which handles the duty of purchasing the government’s fleet vehicles, snagged 14,584 hybrids in the past two fiscal years, accounting for around ten percent of the 145,473 total vehicles that the agency purchased in that same time frame.
According to sales data obtained by Bloomberg under a Freedom of Information Act request, the GSA’s hybrid vehicle purchases break down like this:
- 3,100 hybrids were purchased with $300 million that the GSA received from the 2009 economic stimulus package.
- 5,600 gas-electrics were bought from proceeds obtained by selling older government fleet vehicles.
- The GSA paid, on average, $5,281 below the sticker price for its hybrid vehicle purchases.
- Hybrid models, bought by the GSA, ranged in price from $23,072 to $47,079.
- The GSA purchased a mere 17 Toyota Priuses and just five Honda Civic hybrids in the past two years.
- The government bought 64 percent of all of the Chevrolet Malibu hybrids manufactured since the day that Obama took office.
- 14 percent of all Ford Escape Hybrids purchased in the past two years landed in government fleets.
- 29 of Ford Fusion Hybrids manufactured since early 2009 were bought by the GSA.
Those numbers tell the story. The GSA’s hybrid vehicle purchases have boosted sales of some of Ford’s and GM’s gas-electric models. At the same time, the government agency has failed to help out automakers such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, BMW and others that employ thousands of U.S. workers. It’s a one-sided buying binge that has impacted the bottom line of two automakers.
Photos copyright ©2010 Sam Abuelsamid / AOL
[Source: Bloomberg]
