Friday, January 07, 2005

Hybrid cars

According to today's Washington Post, hybrid cars have been multiplying and clogging up the carpool lanes.

Carpool lanes? Virginia decided that people with "clean fuel" cars could drive in the carpool lanes even if driving solo.

I was wondering why I was seeing so many of these cars in the area. The article suggests people have been buying them so they can drive in the carpool lanes. Virginia has been giving away a valuable benefit to people who buy an overpriced car.

Hybrid cars don't make any sense from an economic perspective. Gas isn't even close to being expensive enough to make up for the high price of a hybrid compared to an inexpensive fuel efficient regular car.

A hybrid car is just a yuppie luxury item and not a practical way to save gas.

4 comments:

Danny Taggart said...

Silly rabbit. Hybrid cars don't run on gas. They run entirely on their owners' sense of self-satisfaction.

Libertarian Girl said...

Stacey, extreme libertarians might say that government shouldn't build any roads. But I don't want to go that far.

If you cede to government the power to build roads for the public good, then the issue of whether HOV lanes make sense is not a libertarian one.

Jack W. Orf said...

You're way off on hybrid cars. If American automakers don't catch up to Japan, they're dead meat.

Toyota has a model now that gets 60 MPG, goes 0-60 in 10 seconds and sells for $20,000. The price will continue to come down as the market broadens and technology matures. The gas milage will continue to go up.

GM is finally starting to sweat and is now going bananas trying to get up to speed.

If Bozo Bush had any brains in his tiny little head, the US Govt would be funding research in this area. Then U.S. automakers would not have to play second fiddle to the Japs.

If you live in Washington, maybe you should mention that to those turkeys.

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The Green Baron said...

Interesting. Does that fact that your president is sending your countrymen to die in the middle east so that you can maintain your low gasoline prices mean nothing to you? What would you do if your price doubled or tripled and got closer to what the rest of the world pays? And of course it's quite fine to drive cars that spew out poisonous gasses and destroy the environment, you're not going to have to live in it later on. Pity about the next generations.

Of course carpooling in a conventional car may be better for the environment than four hybrid cars taking the same route, but what if you car pooled in a hybrid car?

It's comments like "Hybrid cars don't make any sense from an economic perspective. Gas isn't even close to being expensive enough to make up for the high price of a hybrid compared to an inexpensive fuel efficient regular car." that darken the rest of the world's view on the USA.