Featured For All The Talk About Electric Cars, Why Hybrids Are Still King of Green

I agree that hybrids are a wonderful thing compared to gas guzzlers.
Will they ever get past their heydays of 3% market share?

With Toyota expanding their hybrid offerings, it is possible, but I’ll stick with our family’s EVs that match our needs perfectly, are far more convenient, and don’t require us to make any compromises.

 

it's funny how people get paid to write articles that people here write everyday. hmm... maybe stealing from priuschat?

 

it's forbes - they have done a few EV hit pieces in their day.
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I agree with the guy, but hybrids are politically incorrect for many Americans, and do not get much support from Fed and states govs.

Also these days meaningless to say Forbes, as it seems anyone can write a blog article for them, so it is pot luck. But by God I think I have found the second person to join my pro-Hybrid vehicle lobby association.

 

unfortunately, american politicians have moved on. as much as they rail about climate change, they are reluctant to do anything that would get them tossed out of office.

 

i wish it were so, but we have become too large to have a representative government. there is no way for a politician to know the will of the people, so they go with the money: PAC political action committee.

at the local level, it works better.

 

it is the same here, but many voters would like the government to save them from themselves, but they aren't listening.

 

i suppose they can subsidize hybrids more, and raise the gas tax. in the u.s., low gas prices have fueled truck and suv sales.

 

you can't expect people who drive plugins or hybrids to naturally hang their hat on climate change, which most people refer to as "man-made" climate change. Big difference. Glaciers covered half of the US 1,000's of years ago, so climate change happens. CO2 climate change? CO2 from volcanoes - averaged over yearly quantities are 10X more than industrialized CO2 expulsion.
So hang your hat on all better things (too) - besides C02, like not buying gas from terrorists, higher efficiency, less parts to wear out, refuel at home off your own rooftop, leaving non-renewables for future Generations, cleaner air, no smog checks, no oil changes, higher torque, quieter ride, Etc.
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If you say using gasoline subsidizes global terrorism, then hybrid buyers are only doing a little less bad. This is the way many Americans think, and part of the reason why plug-ins get more politcal support here in America. Japan/Australia probably have diffirent attitudes and priorities.

 

Absolutely, and dems are a little less bad than pubs. Isn’t that how we reason our way through life?

 

Kei car laws in the US, Japan doesn’t incentivize them at all, (yet are having problems with them being too popular )
but charge increasing fees the bigger and more unnecessary you get

Having high registration on large new 4wd vehicles with 2wd much cheaper, older cheaper and small cars and motorcycles the cheapest would likely be enough incentive to get many traffic and parking plugging 4wds off the road.
Leave 2wd manual transmission out, older ones cheaper and more efficient big stuff cheaper and you might help road funding and get a better smaller fleet on the roads

It’s amazing what people will do to avoid a couple hundred dollars a year let alone a few thousand

 

I'd say hybrids get some strong support from the Feds when you look at CAFE. The reason that isn't giving their sales a big push is the same reason doesn't help the adoption of any fuel efficient car. The car companies had slash prices and lose the little profit on those cars in order to sell them. Those 900k F-series meant great deals could be found on Fusion hybrids and Energis.

Keep the pressure on with fuel efficiency standards and emissions, and all ICE cars will be a hybrid to some degree. Increased taxes on petroleum will speed that, and plug in adoption, up.

Some of those buyers actually want a smaller truck, the selection is, or was, weak, because of the effect of regulations. The footprint based metric for determining CAFE targets for specific vehicle classes meant that it was harder for the truck companies to reach it with smaller trucks. Then the chicken tax keeps imported small trucks out.

 

You are so right! Nobody should ever have to suffer any inconvenience at all in their pursuit of consumption.

Mike