This thread is interesting. My junior-senior year I was working on our school's solar car when they just started the first college hybrid program. Since most of the Me students switched to that car all of us got an education on Hybrid technology.

Some of the statements here are true:

1. "Hybrids" can work either as an electric car with gas charge and assist or gas car with electric assist. They are two separate paradigms to the "hybrid" design. Electric motors have a flat torque curve so they are very efficient around town as they use as much energy starting as they do cruising. Gas engines are most efficient at a sweet spot as their torque curves are peaked. Thus gas cars are better at constant highway speeds at the right gearing for this spot. Combine them and you get something theoretically more efficient depending on your driving.

2. The hybrid Civic only has marginally better mileage than the base civic. I do not know what the differences in power or driveability are. In that one implementation it may not be financially worth it to own a civic hybrid. However,

3. Right now the early hydrids are still proving the technology. They are being sold at a loss to fund future development. Cars like the Prius are stop-gaps until better hydrids can be in all production cars as engine options. Give the hybrid time to develop and find the best design configuration. Production cars need to be designed from the chassis up as a full size hybrid. There are also limitations in the battery technology which have been keeping them heavy.

4. One of the designs is to simply use the electric motor as a "turbo", supercharger or "power adder" to a normal gas engine. This could give a V6 the power of a V8 when needed for acceleration. Plus you get things like regenerative braking (electric motor turns into a generator thus slowing down the car and charging the batteries)

5. Much like the Range Rover inspiring the Ford Explorer, having Hybrids available may push the automakers to use "out of the box" thinking like variable displacement engines, shutting down the gas engine at a light, etc... It is letting people vote with their feet and saying they care about better mileage.

 

I will agree 75% with this post. Current hybrid technology is almost useless for highway driving. Current consumers do not know how to drive hybrids the way they are suppose to be driven to acheive superior gas milage so many fall well below EPA ratings. While it is a shame, consumers will learn over time as hybrids saturate the market place. It is VERY easy to drive a hybrid to maximize gas milage by using things such as momentum, conservative braking, and using the engine shut off feature to full advantage. It is much easier to absolutely destroy EPA #'s with hybrids than it is with diesels/regular gas engines. There are people in Honda Insights getting OVER 90 LIFETIME MPG, over the course of 50,000+ miles. Now this isn't just one lucky trip, its over the entire lifetime of the vehicle, from delivery to current status. Please point me in the direction of any N/A stock vehicle getting 40% better gas milage than EPA estimates. Now show me 10 or more of the same vehicle doing it also. While Prius's haven't proven to be nearly as remarkable yet, the enthusiasts can still surpass that EPA # with just regular hybrid driving habits. If drivers can understand how to drive hybrids like they're meant to be, they'd be much happier with their personal MPG #'s and their wallets. Can you imagine stopping for gas only once a month to fill up your 10 gallon tank? Thats what I did in the Insight while driving 800 miles/month. With Nimh technology, almost all hybrid sedans could accomplish this.