Reasons Not to Buy a Hybrid Car (yet)

At the risk of heresy, here are good reasons to wait on buying a hybrid vehicle:

Hybrids cost more upfront

Sticker price along with taxes including sales and license fees tend to be 10-30% higher, usually about $3,000 or more. However, it is $1,500 between equivalent equipped Camry and Camry hybrids. How you recover this cost depends on several factors, including:

1. When you sell it
2. Resale value
3. Your income tax situation
4. How much you drive
5. Your insurance company
6. The state you live in
7. How you finance your vehicle
8. Where you take it for service
9. What type of warranties you bought
10. Where you park and how you commute

A UC Davis study of hybrid consumers showed that none calculated these economic variables. They bought hybrid for image-related reasons. Another study also claims those who own both hybrid and non-hybrid vehicles will typically choose to drive the non-hybrid vehicle over the hybrid, which is driven only for "show." Omninerd has developed an incredibly detailed look at the economics of hybrid dated from 2005. [1]

In 2006, Escape Hybrid taxi drivers say they may save more than $6,000 on gas per year" more than enough to cover the hybrid premium in the first year. [2]

Limited Choices with Hybrid Vehicles

Globally there are 50 electric, Hybrid and alternative fuel vehicle choices. Though more and more auto manufacturers are creating a hybrid vehicle in their line-ups, there are more flexible fuel vehicles on the road. Strides are being taken and now, auto consumers can even choose between a durable Ford Escape Hybrid SUV or a luxurious Lexus GS 450h.

Gasoline Reliance

Hybrids on the market today rely on gasoline, for which there is no synthetic substitute (unlike diesel engines, which can run on bio-diesel).

Car battery disposal

Car battery disposal, when the car eventually is retired. There is no known methods on the disposal of these rich sources of nickle and could potentially create dangerous environmental impact but less than a NiCD battery and toxic lead. The 12V batteries in all cars are highly recyclable since the infrastructure is very well in place, unlike the newer batteries used in hybrids. Sad to say, not enough batteries have failed to require a disposal infrastructure and the salvage batteries are selling on Ebay for plug-in projects.

Extra weight

Extra weight and usually lack of performance in terms of acceleration and speed except at low speeds where the electric motor torque gives excellent accelleration. Heavy cars require more energy to move, and greatly affect safety and handling. The Camry hybrid is about 300lbs more than the Camry XLE counterpart. The addition of an electrical engine in the front of the car and a battery pack in the rear right behind passenger seat increases the polar momentum of the car compared to the XLE, which in turn make the car less stable in corners. This is especially noticable in adverse weather conditions.

Real world mileage

The observed mileage is lower than the EPA estimates when not driving EPA profiles. Note that this is true of all vehicles because of the ultimate testing conditions. The gap is even higher in Japan where the Prius and Insight are rated at 90-100 mpgs.

Controversial Studies...

A controversial study by an auto industry analyst claims that it takes more energy to manufacture a hybrid than a regular car. The reportedly rigorous study claims the energy consumed by a Hummer is less than a Prius over their entire lives (due to higher design and manufacturing energy costs for the Prius and a shorter projected life span). The study, of course, has been attacked by environmentalists and those who read the Dept. of Energy fleet report, INL/CON-05-00964, where the first generation hybrids went over 160,000 miles with no appreciable loss of performance. But this study raises interesting questions to consider such as how all SUVs got unusually high lifetime mileage.

• Here is a link to a summary of the study's findings:[3].
• The original study is available from CNW Marketing at: [4].
• A critique of the study is at GreenHybrid.

Alternatives

Alternatives are available now including electric vehicles that PG&E gives a price break on electricity for, biodiesel conversions that can run on used cooking oil including McDonald's, natural gas cars like Honda's HX that are cleaner and can be filled at home, sugar based cars that run on E85 and the like, fuel cell vehicles, and/or any combination of above in hybrid form.

See also

• Top Reasons to Buy a Hybrid Car