Houston Chronicle Editorial

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/e...itorial/2556906

Going before: I've seen the future, and it's OK

MAYOR Bill White recently bought a Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicle that is propelled by both gasoline and electric motors. During a presentation to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, White proposed to convert the city's fleet to similar vehicles. Experience suggests there is much to recommend the proposal and nothing in the technology to disqualify its use in many municipal vehicles. Last year the Chronicle's editorial board met with Toyota executives about their company's new plant in San Antonio. Houston was ruled out as a site in part because it does not meet the standard for ozone in the air. Asked about the future of hybrid vehicles, which burn less fuel and emit less poison, the Toyota executives lent board members a Prius to test-drive.

The first thing about the car is its silence. You turn the key, dashboard lights come on, but the engine remains still. A signal lets the driver know the car is instantly ready to go. Reversing down the drive, the car uses its quiet batteries, giving the sensation it is rolling free. This is unsettling at first, but not as much as having the gasoline engine conk out automatically every time the car stops, only to resume when the car gets up to speed again. There is no idling. The car is rated at 55 miles per gallon, but I can't confirm the mileage. During the week I drove the Prius around the city, from downtown to the Museum District to the Galleria, the needle on the gas gauge never moved below FULL. The compact body does not extend much beyond the wheels, making it easy to park. For city employees such as inspectors and project supervisors, who carry few tools and no cargo, a small hybrid vehicle would be ideal.

The word prius is Latin for precede or go before. Latin scholars will relish the car's full flavor as a transitional forerunner, spanning the gap between gasoline engines and the hydrogen fuel cell or other advanced technology. Driving the Prius, I saw the future. The hybrid car will never replace the British roadster or supercharged German sedan of my imagination, but it's OK. If everyone drove one, and if industrial plants reduced their emissions proportionately, Houston would have little trouble meeting the federal ozone
standard.

May 7, 2004, 10:05PM
EDITORIAL JOURNAL - Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
James Howard Gibbons, interim editor of the opinion pages