– JERRY HIRSCH

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES – Trucks were hot and hybrids not.

Consumers gravitated toward American trucks and Japanese sedans last year, according to a list of the bestselling vehicles from auto information company Edmunds.com. Hybrid sales fell.

“Large trucks and mid-size sedans are staples of the industry. This is what people like,” said Jessica Caldwell, an Edmunds.com analyst.

While in theory people like the concept of spending less on gas and limiting vehicle emissions, “when you have to put your money down, it becomes a different story,” Caldwell said.

Americans purchased 272,282 hybrid vehicles last year, off 6 percent from 2009. They bought more than 1.6 million trucks, a 16 percent increase, according to the Edmunds.com data.

The Ford F-150 pickup truck was the bestselling vehicle in America in 2010. Ford sold 391,219 of the trucks, a 38 percent increase from recession-depressed 2009 and enough to lift the F-150 to the top spot from third place.

Chevrolet’s Silverado 1500 was the second-best-selling truck, trailing the Ford truck by more than 100,000 sales. It ranked third in vehicle sales overall.

The Toyota Camry fell from first place in 2009 to second in 2010 but was still the bestselling car. The Camry has held the car sales crown for nine straight years.

But the Camry had the distinction of being the only vehicle among the top 10 to see its sales decline from 2009. Camry sales fell 6 percent to 313,212 because of Toyota’s recall problems, including a brief suspension of production in February to fix a problem with sticky gas pedals.

Besides the Camry, Toyota’s Corolla, Honda’s Accord and Civic and Nissan’s Altima made up half the top-10 list.

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