Are hybrid cars the wave of the future?
By Cars & Motorcycles on Dec 30, 2008 with Comments 7
strong>violet46 asked: I like the fact that they get great gas mileage, but why aren’t more people driving them? They’ve been on the market for several years now.
Filed Under: Hybrid Cars
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No… hybrids are probably going to be nothing more than a stepping stone to reach the first generation of hydrogen powered vehicles.
probably…. especially since they are not a wave of the past
I think it is still a new technology that has not been proven long term. Plus, there is a really long waiting list for some of them and they don’t have as much performance as some people like and they are more expensive than their non-hybrid counterparts. The difference in fuel expenditures will not be a realized savings for many years. Also, they still use gasoline. I’ll wait until there is a car that doesn’t use anything derived from oil for fuel.
Hybrids are just a way of the auto manufacturers to secure market share in this niche while helping to defray the R&D cost of hybrids and fuel cell technology. In 15 years or so the fuel cell vehicles should be on the market, and that will represent the real move toward a sustainable energy source for transportation.
Meanwhile, hybrids are just a way of creating even more toxic pollution, but it’s hidden well beyond the point-of-use, so most people believe that these costly, complicated, and relatively slow cars are better.
There’s still too much of a premium for hybrid technology.
Their gas mileage is not extra ordinary. It’s an improvement over standard gasoline engines, but nothing spectacular. I mean the corolla/yaris both get 40mpg on the highway.
They are difficult to repair and require a specialist to repair them and some places they only have one mechanic that can even work on them(if that many). Which means $$$
Their battery packs will wear out. Which means that there will need to be a way to dispose of the battery packs in the future. (Another source of pollution)
So their cost as of yet still outweight the minimal benefit of a few more miles per gallon. And gasoline on a per gallon basis is still cheap.
Hybrids are a viable option for the near-term. Other technologies such as hydrogen may be a more viable long-term solution (within 2 decades).
Hybrid sales are through the roof with Ford Escape sales up almost 60% and Prius sales reaching new heights. Hybrids will continue to grow in terms of popularity as more manufacturers introduce more models. There simply are not that many models to choose from. In the next 5 years many more manufacturers will have a hybrids in their product lines, thus offering more choice to the consumer.
they need to make a better variety of cars with hybrid systems to meet the needs of a greater percent of the population.
long term quality will take some time to demonstrate, and i think after they’ve been prove it’ll catch on more.
there’s still the hybrid-driving (insert word like liberal, treehugger, nerd, wimp, etc) stigma out there too.