By Danny King, Contributor Gas-electric hybrids and plug-in electric vehicles may account for as much as 8 percent of new vehicle sales in the U.S. in 2013, up from about 2 percent last year, as the combination of rising oil prices, falling prices relative to hybrids' conventional counterparts and a broader network of plug-in charging sites pull more people away from gasoline-burning cars, according to a recent report on the next generation of autos . Worldwide, hybrid-vehicle sales will surge to about 2 million units in 2013 from about 550,000 units last year, while rechargeable – or plug-in – battery-electric cars will account for about 350,000 sales, compared with less than 10,000 plug-in sales last year, according to the NextGen research unit of technology industry specialist ABI Research . With domestic new vehicle sales slumping to about 13 million units last year and the U.S. accounting for about half of the hybrid vehicles sold worldwide, less than one in 40 new U.S. cars were hybrids or plug-ins last year. “As the economy improves, the price of oil is going to go up, so it will be much more sensible to go battery-electric or hybrid,” said Larry Fisher, research director for
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Plugs Everywhere: Hybrid, EV Sales to Triple Globally by 2013, Report Predicts
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