Reasons Not to Buy a Hybrid Car (yet)

For the sake of contrast and balance, here are good reasons to wait on buying a hybrid vehicle:

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Extra weight

Extra weight might impact performance in terms of acceleration except at low speeds where the electric motor torque gives excellent acceleration. Heavy cars require more energy to move, affecting safety and handling. This suggests that it is a good idea to buy a light car in order to get the best fuel efficiency. The Camry hybrid is about 300lbs heavier than the Camry XLE counterpart. The addition of an electrical engine in the front of the car and a battery pack in the rear behind the passenger seat increases the polar momentum of the car compared to the XLE, which can affect the handling of the car, this may be noticable in adverse weather conditions. The addition of extra torque and excellent control of the electric motor can be a benefit in other situations.

Low traction, high treadwear tires

The factory tires used on hybrids, specifically the Prius' Goodyear Integrity contribute to higher fuel economy and EPA test numbers but low real world stopping performance. The tires give better mileage due to a harder compound and tread pattern but poor traction, poor straight line stability, and were the lowest rated wet performance tire on tirerack.com.The Prius's panic braking was called "jerky and slightly odd" and straight line performance as "blown around in the wind" *Here are links to reviews of the prius's poor traction and straight line performance: [1] [2]

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 due to the specific profile used for testing fuel consumption. Recent studies in the U.S. have put hybrids in "real world" driving conditions, which shows the actual MPG for many hybrids. This is the data you should use to calculate your savings from buying a hybrid, so you avoid surprises. If you drive your car carefully, it may be possible to meet and even exceed EPA mileage estimates, many so-called Hypermilers show that EPA can be called conservative, but the average driver is driving far more agressively and this reflects in lower numbers for all vehicles, not just Hybrids.

Note that keeping the car well tuned will allow you to benefit from maximum performance and miles per gallon.

Controversial Studies

A well-refuted study by an auto industry analyst claims that it takes more energy to manufacture a hybrid than a regular car. The 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 if you like to consider ridiculous assumptions, such as how all SUVs got unusually high lifetime mileage. Another flaw from the study is that it charges the design and manufacturing costs to a car, while it is claiming to compare energy expressed in cost, so it makes the illogical choice to consider design (thinking) and being payed for that activity equal to buying and burning energy, which makes no sense.

• 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.

A white paper written by the founders of Tesla Motors, showed that hybrids ranked quite high in efficiency. Electric cars ranked highest, and the study can be found at Tesla's website.

Alternatives

Alternatives are available now including electric vehicles that PG&E gives a price break on electricity for, 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, prototype fuel cell vehicles, and/or any combination of above in hybrid form.

Also, the next generation of diesel cars optimized to run on ultra low sulfur diesel fuel will be available in 2008. These get equivalent mileage to hybrids without the added cost for the hybrid feature. They also emit about the same amount of carbon as hybrids. These next gen diesels use a nitrogen oxide storage catalyst controlled by the engine management system to treat the NOx and then a particulate filter downstream in the exhaust to further treat particulate emissions. The 2008 next gen VW TDI also meets California's Low-Emission Vehicle II standard and Federal Tier 2/Bin 5 standards.

See also

• Top Reasons to Buy a Hybrid Car