Does going Hybrid save enough dollars to make sense?

After reading one propaganda article after another about the pros and cons, “conspiracy” and “reality”, and environmental impacts of Hybrid cars I only know one thing for sure. No one really cares about the environment we are supposedly saving. Each side of this Hybrid debate, are just as crazy as the other, spouting off biased propaganda and skewing facts beyond recognition.

All I really learned from the garble that is this internet debate is that I needed to think about things myself, away from the hysterically screaming masses. Instead of referring to EPA estimate mileage per gallon tests and government studies I am basing all of my assumptions on good old fashion human error or as I like to call it, Common Sense.

I currently drive a Honda civic. Not sexy but according to my local Honda salesman, who I think is a member of the communist party (I’m not judging), it is practical and economical. My friend drives a Toyota Prius, and though I know for a fact that he is a communist I will still be using this comparison for the basis of my questionably accurate assumptions. Our commutes are similar, our driving habits are similar and we both take a great deal of liberty in the manufacturers scheduled maintenance guidelines.

Hybrids are Cost Effective: The best way to combat the rising gas prices is to drive a car with better fuel economy. My Civic gets me to work and back with an average MPG ranging from 30 to 34. Being fair I used 30 MPG to figure that while I drive 15,000 miles a year it costs me $1550 to drive my car. This is only the price of fuel for the year. My friend tells me his Prius gets him an average of 46 MPG and when driving 15,000 miles a year it would cost him $1010 a year to drive his car. This is all based on a price per gallon of $3.10. According to Yahoo Cars.com the MSRP of a base model Civic is $15,010 while the base model Prius fetches a tag of $20,950, a price difference of over $5000. This means for the Prius to be cost effective you would need to drive it for more than 10 years. Personally, I haven’t had the same car for longer than 3 years in my entire life, and the fact that the Prius battery warranty runs out at 100,000 miles means that you will probably be turning in that car long before it starts paying dividends.

I love the Environment: Although I’d like to think people buy Hybrid cars because they care about the world around them…I’m just not buying it. And then to back me up a study by CNW (yes biased, bad, evil, whatever) showed that 34 percent of Hybrid owners bought their cars mainly because of what it says about them as a person. They bought it to help their self image. Me, me, me, me, me, me. I hear you saying, “That’s not a fair and unbiased survey,” as I ask, “Have you ever met a Prius owner?” If you haven’t then take the time to watch a South Park episode entitled Smug Alert. Say what you will about the show itself, but in my experience the episode paints a fairly accurate portrait of Hybrid owners in general, and I for one am perfectly comfortable making broad generalizations. If people were really that concerned with CO2 emissions there are a variety of things that can be done before we introduce an untested technology. Developing and using public transportation is one the oldest, easiest, and most cost effective ways to fight CO2 emissions caused by our daily commute, but most Americans have been unwilling or unable to take advantage of such “modern” conveniences. Outside of New York and San Francisco mass transit on a large scale really doesn’t exist in America. And if cutting CO2 emissions were actually a governmental priority why aren’t Diesel powered passenger cars more readily available? In fact, these vehicles, which have comparable or better CO2 emissions than the Toyota Prius, are actually illegal to register as a brand new vehicle in the state of California.

Where do all the batteries go? My car has one battery and small as it is, it comes with a multitude of warnings. Don’t tip, don’t spill, never break the seal, if seal is broken don’t breath fumes DANGER!! DANGER!! DANGER!! I think we can all agree that batteries, from AAA to Diehards aren’t exactly biodegradable. In the days before Hybrid cars the United States was one of the leading nations in shipping its used batteries to third world countries for “recycling.” Thousands of tons of used batteries would be sent to developing countries to leak acid into the ground. By the way when they said recycling I think they actually meant to say “indefinite storage.” As Hybrid cars get older their batteries will also need to be “recycled”, but compared to the one battery in my car, my friends Prius is powered by a battery stack consisting of 38 prismatic NiMH modules that themselves consists of six 1.2v cells. Look me in the eyes and tell me that isn’t going to have an environmental impact of some sort, especially if Hybrid model cars become even more popular. For me, right now buying a Hybrid car doesn’t seem to any of the world’s problems like everyone wants me to believe. It’s a good thing that, in this self obsessed world, no one really cares.