These are the good old days

What can we conclude from two unrelated-but-related stories out today?

Reports the Associated Press:

Hybrid sales plunged 43 percent in December and 50 percent in November, according to the auto Web site Edmunds.com, surpassing the industry’s overall sales decline of 36 percent in December and 37 percent the month before.

Toyota watched sales of the Prius, the top-selling hybrid in the U.S., tumble 45 percent in December, while sales of Nissan Motor Co.’s Altima hybrid fell a whopping 70 percent.

Meanwhile, you’ve probably noticed that gasoline prices are on the way up again, thanks to the violence in the Middle East::

Crude oil prices increased by 30 percent in the last seven days, according to information posted by the New York Times, causing the wholesale price of gasoline to increase by 40 percent since Dec. 24.

“A lot of people are talking about dollar-a-gallon gasoline, when the wholesale market seems to be pointing to $2 a gallon,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS).

All of this on a day when Ford unveiled its all-electric plans.