Hybrid Tomfoolery

When the Hybrid Automobile was introduced I named it a hula hoop embraced by the easily fooled.

Many people point to the success of the hybrid to prove me wrong. I have kept my powder dry until the pudding's proof is found.

It is.

I am in favor of all electric plug in vehicles and even those with on board gasoline chargers (which makes sense where hybrids don't). I won't explain the difference. You'll just have to think about it.

The trade off in convenience and battery life is offset by basically running your transportation on Nuclear Power (we get our power from the Byron Nuclear station in IL).

I like that Idea. So batteries have to be replaced every 5 years for $2500, wash that against the miles driven and it's a pretty good bargain.

Fuel cells are a lost cause. I'll get to that some other time. Technology can't get over some humps that exist.

The argument against hybrids is it works so so in town, giving illusory savings but on the road is about the same as my Buick. For that you pay big money, suffer huge resale discounts (a 5 year old Honda Civic Hybrid and a 5 year old gasoline Civic have a $4000 gap to the hybrids discount). Used hybrids are not high value.

Add to that after you have driven the dumb thing for 5 years it will need new batteries for about $2500 plus labor ($500). Never mind that you have highway wise achieved the same mileage as the Buick but in town you only enjoyed a 1/3rd improvement. It's all smoke and mirrors.

10 years from now junkyards will be full of these carcasses. Oh, the appeal of a hybrid SUV is great. Kind of. Except that's phony too.

What we really need to spend our energies on is alternative fuels and better batteries for our plug ins.

Plus when the price of oil drops so will the resale value of those worn out hybrids. They always were and always will be a hula hoop.

Now can we get past hybrids, ethanol and wind power and all the other stupid energy jokes and on to making some sense of true alternatives?

I challenge anyone to do the math and demonstrate that Hybrids save any money at all over a 10 year 200,000 mile ownership curve.

They don't.