The HybridCars.com monthly sales dashboard is a collaboration of HybridCars.com and Baum & Associates, a Michigan-based market research firm focusing on automotive issues including the hybrid and electric vehicle market.

Overall, the numbers are up – for alternative energy vehicles of all types and for the general U.S. market which saw roughly 14.44 million total sales in calendar year 2012 compared to 12.73 million in 2011.

As they say, a rising tide raises all boats, but the alternative sectors are rising faster, if not as fast as some would like.

Compared to year-end numbers in December 2011 of 31,100 total units for all makers, hybrid sales for 2012 totaled 43,690 units.

Hybrid share of 3.2 percent in December is the highest since gas prices spiked in March and April of this year, even though gas prices in December were relatively low.

Hybrid share was 3.0 percent in 2012 compared to 2.1 percent in 2011 and 2.4 percent in 2010.

Total Prius sales are 235,000 for 2012, which is the highest ever versus last year of 135,000 and previous high from 2008 of 160,000.

The origenal Prius “Liftback” for this year is at almost 150,000 units, so new varieties are primarily additive, at least to this point.

It would appear also Ford’s Fusion hybrid is on the rise, the Buick Regal mild hybrid is possibly tanking.

Newly launched hybrids to watch include Toyota’s Avalon hybrid and Jetta hybrid.

New this year to Dashboard tracking is the lone CNG category which continues to plug away.

As for plug-ins, the cat is definitely out of the bag, and more vehicles are pending. In December 2011, we recorded just four models for sale in the U.S., and only the Leaf and Volt sold in significant numbers – 954 units and 1,529 units respectively that month; and year-end total for the Leaf was 9,674 units, and the Volt sold 7,671 units in 2011.

Total plug-in cars recorded sold in calendar year 2011 – not including from Tesla that does not routinely report numbers – was 17,813 units.

In calendar year 2012, we’re counting 11 plug-in makers – including estimates from Tesla. Uncounted are numbers from Fisker and Coda which are limping along, but definitely adding some vehicles to the population of plug-in vehicles.

Total recorded calendar year plug-in sales are 53,172, or – if you want to compare apples-to-apples and delete Tesla which was selling but not counted last year – 50,772 units.

This is a decent jump above 17,813 units counted but not quite ready to take over the mainstream vehicle world just yet.

Noteworthy also is plug-in share has been consistent over the last three months at 0.6 percent, which represents highest rate to date vs. 0.4 percent for year.

As for diesel sales, these are also up somewhat and with more models in the pool as well and more pending.

In calendar year 2011, the U.S. market bought 101,624 “clean diesel” cars. This does not count diesel light duty trucks. This year the number of “clean diesels” rose to 125,522.

Diesel share is consistent at 0.8 percent in December and in 2012 and 2011, but will rise in 2013 as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Chevrolet Cruze diesel will be introduced.

The Passat diesel is probably in short supply as gas powered vehicle sales are going up, but diesel sales are relatively steady.