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Hybrids Don't Get Consumers Pumped

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 15, 2007

At the car show inside the Tampa Convention Center last weekend, an excited buzz was audible around the most powerful, sexy, pricy, exotic and gas-thirsty vehicles. No lines formed to sit in the thrifty cars, the wallflowers of the dance.

Folks found little to energize them on the great-mileage side of the scale. The new breed of frugal vehicles the future will demand, with a few exceptions, just didn't show up.

Some 18 models of gasoline-electric hybrids were on display and a green theme was evident. Yet the crop of new vehicles - which run on a combination of battery power and gasoline - didn't come close to meeting the minimum fuel-efficiency standards of a bill approved a few months ago in the U.S. Senate: an overall average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

In city driving, the 2008 fleet of hybrids averages only 27.6 miles per gallon. The average on the open road is slightly better at 30.4. But remove the previously introduced Toyota Prius and Honda Civic hybrids from the mix and the new models get only 25.5 city and 28.5 highway. That's nothing to get excited about.

Indeed, the new group of so-called green vehicles hardly beats the 25-mile-per-gallon standard set in this country back in 1975.

You can't expect big SUV hybrids like the Cadillac Escalade and Chevrolet Tahoe to rival the thrift of the Prius or Civic, and you can't expect American motorists to suddenly switch to tiny cars like the two-seater Smart to achieve the 35 mpg average.

The gap between that goal and today's market reality is vast.

If you look at where the 2008 models are in relation to the Senate's reasonable high-mileage destination, you must conclude that if we are to get greater fuel efficiencies in domestic vehicles, it will have to be in cars and trucks we haven't seen yet.

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