Cars.com says it has seen a decline in searches for hybrids and other fuel-efficient cars, which had a large increase in searches over the last several months as fuel prices, were at all-time highs.

Hybrid cars including the Honda Civic, the Honda Insight, the Toyota Prius and the Ford Escape were all among the site’s used cars that had largest decline in search activity over the last month.

"This is fairly consistent with what we’ve experienced in past years with the ebb and flow of gas prices," said Patrick Olsen, managing editor of Cars.com.

"As gas prices decline, we are starting to see people searching for crossover vehicles and some SUVs. We have yet to see a sustained movement away from gas-guzzlers. Instead, we find that consumers are reacting to current prices at the pump when it comes to their automotive search and buying behavior."

Crossover vehicles such as the Buick Enclave, Saturn Outlook and GMC Acadia have all experienced a large increase in search activity in the last month. Cars.com believes that crossover vehicles as a category will continue to be popular on the site in the coming months.

Below are lists of the most-searched used cars and the used cars experiencing the largest increase and decrease in searches on Cars.com.
    Used-Cars with the Largest Decrease in Searches (July)

    1           Ford Escape Hybrid
    2           Geo Metro
    3           Honda Insight
    4           Honda Civic Hybrid
    5           Toyota Prius
    6           Geo Tracker
    7           Mazda MX-5
    8           BMW Z3
    9           Hyundai Azera
    10          Lexus SC 430

    Used-Cars with the Largest Increase in Searches (July)

    1           Buick Enclave
    2           Subaru B9 Tribeca
    3           Ford Expedition EL
    4           Saturn Outlook
    5           Chrysler Aspen
    6           GMC Acadia
    7           Mazda CX-7
    8           Mercedes-Benz GL-Class
    9           Dodge Nitro
    10          Acura RDX

It’ll still be quite a while before that free electricity offsets the initial cost of the system, but at least the panels have earned Google a little positive PR.  The Earth Times Online, for example, states, “The Google system is also now the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the United States.”

To help people grasp the size of this development, Google has even created a new performance monitoring site; I’m told that, over the past day, those solar panels have generated enough electricity to run almost 6,000 loads of laundry.  There are interesting charts, as well – as it is solar power Google’s using, you’ll note that output drops to zero overnight.

That’s not a problem, though.  “The system will offset peak electricity consumption at the solar powered offices and the newly constructed solar carports have charging stations for the plug-in hybrids,” writes Dan Reicher, Google.org’s Director of Climate and Energy Initiatives, on the Official Google Blog.

Google’s got deep pockets; its attitude towards solar power could change the way a lot of important people think.  And even if the search engine company didn’t just affect the whole oil industry, well . . . the power of positive PR could wipe out some bad feelings.

“September’s breach of the $3.00/gallon mark appears to be the tripping factor for the massive spike in searches on ‘gas prices,’ said general manager of research at Hitwise. “Even though we ventured into the $2.90s in the last few weeks, we experienced only a moderate increase in ‘gas price’ searches.”

The $2.90 per gallon mark, though, does set off a dramatic spike in searches for the term [hybrid]. The byproduct of that is good news for Toyota and Honda, two car manufacturers that offer hybrid automobiles. In April, Toyota’s website enjoyed a traffic increase of 42 percent overall while visits to Honda’s website increased by 19 percent.

The largest spike in traffic went to websites like Gas Price Alert and Gas Buddy, where visitors flocked by an increase of 432 percent and 417 percent respectively between April 1st and April 29th.

The pain at the pump also pushes interest in alternative energy. Hitwise says searches for the term [ethanol] were up 212 percent for the four weeks ending May 13th, and searches for [biodiesel] was up 100 percent. Tancer reasons that increased attention to ethanol as an alternate fuel source in 2006 has caused it to overtake biodiesel, which was more popular last September.

In April, the market share of visits to the government site FuelEconomy.gov were up 115 percent over March 2006, and visits to the American Coalition for Ethanol site and the US Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy site were up 96 percent and 78 percent respectively.

The flipside of that, fewer people are searching for [SUV] and even [roadside motels] as the summer travel season begins.

“The majority of visits to the motel category occur during the summer months, yet as gas prices increase over the last several weeks, there is a noticeable decline in visits to the category,” said Tancer.

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Vehicle manufacturer Toyota plans to produce 500,000 autos with hybrid engine technology in 2006.

According to the Asahi Shimbun, Toyota expects demand for its Prius to grow dramatically. The company recently announced plans to build hybrid versions of its enormously popular Camry at it Georgetown, Kentucky plant. 50,000 hybrid Camrys will be produced by the Georgetown plant in 2006.

Toyota will build hybrids of a couple of its SUV models, Harrier and Kluger, which are sold in North America under the Lexus brand. Demand for those SUVs has seen waiting periods of three or four months. Also, the Lexus luxury line will have hybrid models by the end of 2006.

Ford and Honda both manufacture hybrid vehicles, but neither to the scale of Toyota. And, Toyota has been encouraging its affiliated suppliers of hybrid-related parts to ramp up production of key items like batteries for hybrid engines.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.