Long-Term Reliability Could Be a Problem
Except for the poor folks who take on a hybrid vehicle without thinking it through, no one runs the risk of suffering any real harm from this current media fascination with hybrid-powered vehicles in general and the Toyota Prius in particular.
Indeed, viewed correctly, the ongoing infatuation with hybrid vehicles might actually become a classic case of bandwagonism and should make for a textbook case of how the media can be, ummh, positioned to believe just about anything a scheming company wants.
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| Could the ongoing infatuation with hybrid vehicles actually be just a classic case of bandwagonism? (Photo: Toyota) |
Here's a ration of reality -- none of the hybrid vehicles already on the market or headed there from Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota or anyone else are the great, bright hope of either the auto industry or the concerned car owner.
I wish it were so on behalf of the global environment or even the geo-political reality that causes us to bear arms in pursuit of a stable relationship with some oil-producing country, but it's not. Sorry.
New environmental and political realties are not likely to happen for a few more years, when the hydrogen economy and its fuel cell vehicles arrive. We can only hope the next economy (whether it's hydrogen- or solar- or seawater-powered) develops in a way that favors all of humanity.
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| No one at any of the car companies has figured out exactly how a hybrid's going to work and behave over the long term. (Photo: Honda) |
Notwithstanding all that, it is true that a hybrid will generally deliver better fuel economy than a comparably-sized vehicle with a traditional internal combustion engine, though probably not as great as billed and probably with reduced performance levels.
A hybrid will also put a customer in a much more precarious ownership position than a vehicle with an internal combustion engine, and that situation could be a lot worse than the owner can imagine.