Burning Image's flickr photostream/Creative Commons

Is the golden age of the hybrid car already over? The Los Angeles Times fears that this might be the case. Even though Honda releases its Insight this month, and the new Prius isn’t far behind, sales of hybrids are falling fast, as gas prices do the same.

Last month, only 15,144 hybrids sold nationwide, down almost two-thirds from April, when the segment’s sales peaked and gas averaged $3.57 a gallon. That’s far larger than the drop in industry sales for the period and scarcely a better showing than January, when hybrid sales were at their lowest since early 2005.

I assume “last month” means February and “April” means of 2008. But, the point is, instead of running out of cars and charging far above sticker price for the Prius, Toyota dealers now have 80 days’ stock on hand, and are having trouble moving them, even after including some bonus pricing deals. This all comes, by the by, as American automakers are finally embracing the hybrid market.

The biggest push is coming from Detroit. Ford plans to follow its new 41-mile-per-gallon Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids with a battery-powered van in 2010 and a “family” of hybrids by 2012. And last month, in their request to the Obama administration for $21.6 billion in additional bailout cash, both General Motors and Chrysler announced a hybrid onslaught. Chrysler promised eight new hybrids or electric vehicles by 2015, and GM, which already sells eight hybrids, said 26 of the 33 cars it sells in 2015 won’t run on gas alone, including the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid due out next year.

Here’s hoping that environmentalism wins over wallets, though gas prices are bound to rebound some day (part of the problem is that oil is priced in dollars, which, you know, suck right about now), and then perhaps hybrid sales will rebound as well.

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