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Hybrid Cars, Transport for the Future
by Scott HarkerHybrid cars are one of the more recent, and most pragmatic, innovations in the battle against greenhouse gases and global warming. Electric cars would, of course, be the ultimate in reducing emissions, aside from those pollutants produced in the generation of the electricity used to power them. But all attempts to make a viable electric car have produced nothing that would be practical for the average driver.
There is a niche for electric cars. Electric cars work well if you do
One direct and immediate advantage of driving a hybrid car is the reduction in your fuel bill! With the escalating cost of gas at the pumps, fuel economy is becoming more and more important. A typical car driven around town will return fuel economy figures of less than 25 mpg. And mpg is much lower with the larger cars that many own. This is also true for SUV's which often have alarmingly low fuel economy around town, often running at 15-25 mpg with many achieving less than 10 mpg!
This startlingly low, and increasingly costly, mpg figure can be improved dramatically by shifting to any of the hybrid cars that are currently on the market. You should find it relatively easy to achieve figures in excess of 55 mpg; with even large hybrid SUV's obtaining a figure of 30-40 mpg. The cash you can save obviously depends on the type of driving you do, your hybrid car and your style of driving, but there are considerable savings to be had.
Changing to hybrid cars instead of traditional gas or diesel engined ones could save you a great deal of money. You could realistically cut your fuel bill by anywhere between 25 to 50 percent. If you are currently driving an SUV and change to a similar hybrid model you could see an average $3,000 fuel bill reduced to $1,500. Even more money could be left in your pocket if you switch to one of the smaller, though still reasonably sized, hybrid cars.
One of the arguments against hybrid cars, and also one of the reasons that many were reluctant to make the model change was price. Hybrid cars are currently more expensive to buy than conventional cars. This is due to having both an electric motor and a gas engine as well as other technological additions.
However the higher price differential maybe due to change with the new tax breaks for hybrid cars. In any case. the difference is much less than it used to be, with some hybrid cars costing as little as $1,000 more than their conventional counterparts. The price sticker difference would be made up, with a normal amount of mileage, in saved fuel costs in the first year.
The tax breaks for hybrid cars merged with increased competition will make the cost of the vehicles more on a par with the standard road going model. The fuel savings hybrids will provide should be money in the bank. A previously skeptical public can now view the benefits of hybrid cars as being financial as well as environmental. This should encourage a much wider ownership which, in turn, may drive prices lower again as cost per unit decreases with the economy of scale that mass production can bring.
So hybrid cars may soon be not only good for the environment, but also good for your wallet as well. And hopefully in the near future, hybrid cars may be, with a falling sticker price and ever increasing fuel efficiency, not only marginally, but a substantially cheaper alternative for the financially and environmentally conscious driver.