Choosing the Best Hybrid Car for Your Needs
This article is about picking the best hybrid car possible, given you budget, fuel economy desires, and general driving needs. First, I explain why people love hybrid vehicles. Second, I talk about fuel economy and hybrid driving comfort. Next, I talk about the Toyota Prius , Honda Civic hybrid, Ford Escape Hybrid and even the Chevy Volt .
Hybrid cars are increasingly popular, as the price of gasoline has gone up and seems unlikely to drop below $2.00 per gallon in the foreseeable future. All hybrid cars have both an electric motor and a gasoline powered engine (hence the name); when the car brakes, the battery is recharged, and when the car idles, the gasoline engine may be shut down.
The appeal of a hybrid car is increased fuel economy , which both saves you money and reduces your environmental impact. As part of an incentive program to switch over to hybrid cars and electric vehicles, there are Federal programs that provide a tax rebate for their purchase; these tax rebates go away after a certain number of qualifying vehicles are sold. Most of the Toyota hybrid vehicles , including the Prius, have sold enough cars that these no longer apply.
With all that said, let’s cover the models that are out there, and what needs they fill.
The Toyota Prius is the dominant hybrid car on the market, it’s the model with the greatest mind share. With mileage in real world situations approaching 45 miles to the gallon, the Prius is the leader in terms of raw fuel economy. (It’s fuel economy is high enough that it still makes economic sense compared to the closest non hybrid vehicle in its weight range, the Volkswagon Golf). It boasts a comfortable front and rear seat arrangement (though the rear has some legroom issues), and remarkable driver visibility. Its drawback is that it is not, in any way, shape or form, sporty. It’s a perfectly functional box with wheels with excellent gas mileage .
If you’re looking for something that won’t set you apart as a greenie, something that has a sense of style that’s a bit more conventional, then the primary choice is the Honda Civic Hybrid . It gains a respectable 5 mpg over its non-Hybrid counterpart, but still costs almost $6,000 more at MSRP. However, it’s still eligible for the tax rebates mentioned above, which helps remove much of the sting. Aside from looks ant styling (it still looks like a midsized car, for example.) it boasts better legroom and its gasoline engine is more powerful than that of the Prius, meaning that it wins on the ‘fun to drive’ standard.
For people who love their SUVs, but can’t abide the gas bill, there are two models of hybrid SUVs on the market; both are good for people who want to haul serious cargo, and get over 16 mpg. (In terms of percentage of increase, most SUVs gain more from a hybrid engine than any other vehicle class, in part because SUVs start with horrible gas mileage, and because they have more space to store batteries.)
The leading hybrid truck in the country is the Toyota Highlander Hybrid , which is really more of an overgrown station wagon than a heavy SUV; even so, the hybrid mechanism adds nearly 10 mpg to the mileage compared to the non-Hybrid version, and it doesn’t lose much in the way of performance.
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For a full sized SUV, the Ford Escape Hybrid is the only one on the market, and its sales have been dismal, though it gets good reviews as a car. It gains 7 miles per gallon over its non-hybrid counterpart, and has a full SUV-sized carrying capacity. What it also has is a huge sticker shock. More recent models have had plug in ports to let you charge the battery overnight from a wall socket.
The Chevy Volt may be the future of hybrid drive train vehicles. Designed as a plug in hybrid from the get go, the Volt has four electric motors powering the wheels directly, powered by the hybrid batteries , backed up by the small, very efficient gasoline engine powers a generator that refills the battery on the car. Because they could replace the drive shaft and transmission with more battery capacity, the Volt has a cruising range of 30 to 40 miles before it even starts up the gasoline engine. GM is talking about scaling this drive train up to a full sixed truck body vehicle if the Volt does well in the market place.