Hybrid Cars - Introduction

Welcome to our website Hybrid Cars. Here we will examine some of the controversial issues which surround SUV ownership and provide a viable argument for owning a hybrid car. If you have been thinking about dumping your gas guzzling SUV vehicle due to high fuel prices, and instead opt for a more fuel efficient hybrid vehicle, then this site is for you.

First let me say at the onset that the information presented here is directed at current SUV owners. Specifically, owners of SUVs which in relative terms, get poor gas mileage. The information presented here is not directed toward owners of trucks, or any vehicle where a persons livelihood is dependent on the use of that truck. The information presented here is for SUV owners who really have very little utilitarian use for a SUV. Another words, a hybrid car or more fuel efficient vehicle could replace the SUV.

This article was originally written when the price of fuel was around three dollars per gallon. At that time, statistics showed that Americans were still buying low fuel efficiency SUVs. As an update, the price of fuel is now over four dollars per gallon and finally, sales for SUVs are starting to drop.

This is a step in the right direction, but there are still people who have the mind set that they should be able to buy the vehicle of their choice, regardless of the fuel efficiency of the vehicle. Why Americans still to this day continue to purchase SUVs in light of sky rocketing fuel prices is a mystery. It should be noted here the term SUV refers to the gas slurping type, not the fuel efficient and even hybrid SUVs which have started to enter the market.

Here we will also discuss how the American car companies greatly contributed to the current high fuel price, and what American car companies can do to help pull us out of this current mess we are in.

Here you will also find a Hybrid Cars Book Store. We invite you to browse our book store if you would like to learn more about this interesting topic.

For completeness, we will also touch briefly on the current trend of developing your own fuel efficiency by using a system which is easily adapted to your current vehicle. This system uses water to produce hydrogen, thereby decreasing the amount of gas needed for combustion. We provide links to further your knowledge about this topic, and leave it up to you to decide if using water is a viable means for fuel efficiency.

In any case, this mini site is mainly about hybrid cars and their attributes. This small site is also about discouraging the use of low fuel efficiency vehicles, specifically those fuel slurping SUVs.

As most thinking individuals know, sport utility vehicles, and not hybrid cars, have been a major contributor to the current sky rocketing fuel prices, which begs the question, why do Americans still continue to buy these gas slurping vehicles?

From what I can see, the only reason people keep buying SUVs instead of fuel efficient hybrid cars, is because of the high level of SUV marketing that has existed for many years. Later we will discuss other viable reasons as to why Americans continue to purchase SUVs, and we will also think about the possibility that the high level of SUV ownership in the United States may not be the fault of the SUV purchasing American after all.

Why Consider a Hybrid Car?

Lets examine some of the components of the argument against SUV ownership and concomitantly examine why more Americans are not purchasing more hybrid cars.

Should we as Americans continue to buy SUVs which results in a continual high demand for fuel. If the fuel demand is high, fuel prices will continue to increase. Whether you can afford a SUV or not is really not the point.

Most people who buy a SUV make payments on the vehicle, so what does it mean to own a SUV. There are people driving around nice cars (or SUVs) who can barely pay their rent or mortgage. Owning an SUV really means excess in it’s worse form. If you can not get rid of the precept that what you drive is important, and you feel like you need to impress people with what you drive, drive a hybrid car and people will think you are smart.

Hybrid Cars - Today’s Videos About Hybrid Cars

SUV owners argue that SUVs are safer and that they provide a greater carrying capacity. Lets examine the safety issue first. In terms of vehicle safety, most car safety experts agree a car is safe if it is driven by a person who knows how to drive properly. Driving properly means being able to avoid poor drivers.

If you are a poor driver, does that mean you need to drive around a SUV in order to protect yourself from your poor driving skill? If you are a good driver, you should not have a need to drive a SUV, at least from a safety perspective. The point is, if you don’t want to have an accident, work on your driving skill. All types of skill can be improved, including the skill of driving, and most importantly, you can develop the skill of avoiding poor drivers.

If you drive a SUV because it is safer, then obviously if you are in an accident, you do not care to much about the other driver if that driver is driving a smaller vehicle.

Because the SUV has a greater mass, studies have shown that the driver of the smaller vehicle will not fair to well in an accident. Again the safety argument concept does not hold water. Of course if you don’t care about other people then yes the argument holds. Interesting isn’t it.

What about the greater carrying capacity argument. OK once in a while you need to buy a large flat screen TV from Costco, like once every 10 or 15 years. Do you really need a gas guzzling vehicle for that once in a blue-moon time to transfer a large item.

Remember, SUVs have been one of the major contributors to the rising of gas prices. Increase demand, fuel prices go up. Our current high fuel prices is really due to supply and demand. Some people think it is a oil refinery issue in that they feel there is not enough refineries. This is only part of the problem. The fact of the matter remains, no matter what industry you are talking about, if supply is low and demand is high, price will be high. SUVs have done the lion share of the contribution to this demand.

Why not own a hybrid car? There seems to be one major reason why individuals have not taken the leap and buy a hybrid car. Cost. Is purchasing a gas-electric hybrid car financially beneficial? Yes hybrid cars at this point are pretty expensive and many people will opt to purchase a traditional fuel efficient vehicle. It really depends how long you plan on keeping the hybrid car and the type of hybrid car you plan to buy. The best gas mileage for the hybrid cars can be seen in the Toyota Prius, at 60mpg city and 51mpg hwy. If you plan on keeping this vehicle for long term i.e. greater then 5 years, then buying this car makes sense.

American car companies are also producing hybrid cars and hybrid SUVs, but as of 2007, they can not produce hybrid cars which come close to the fuel economy seen in Toyota and Honda hybrids. Yes, I agree that hybrid cars are expensive and they may even cost more to operate during the first five years, but in the long run you save money, and as with most forms of new technology, the prices of the hybrid cars should go down.

The point is you do not even have to purchase a hybrid car to save money on fuel. You can purchase a non-hybrid car from Toyota or Honda and still see substantial savings in fuel costs relative to SUVs. Regardless of your income, Americans need to develop the thinking that intelligent frugality is the way of the future. Not bombastic excess.

This Hybrid Cars website was created to act as a springboard for a full push campaign to start the process of getting SUV vehicles off the road and getting hybrid fuel efficient vehicles on the road. If people don’t buy SUVs, the American car companies will not produce them. If there is a demand for fuel efficient hybrid cars, the American car companies will produce them. Off course the American car company executives have been a major contributor to the problem by pushing monolithic SUVs on the American public.

American Car Companies Should Have Developed Hybrid Cars Earlier

The American consumer will buy what is marketed toward him/her. So is it really the American consumer’s fault that we have so many gas guzzling vehicles on the roads and not enough hybrid cars in the United States. I believe not. It really is the fault of the American car companies, because of the high level of marketing of these vehicles. American car companies could have developed hybrid cars 10 or 15 years ago but they decided to keep on the same path of pushing SUVs on the American public.

Yes, any viable company needs to make a profit, and the car companies make between $10,000 to $15,000 in pure profit from each SUV. But don’t large corporations have a morale standard to abide by? Should not the American car companies be concerned about what is good for our country with a long term perspective. Given the fact that they kept pushing these gas guzzling vehicles on the American public, it appears as if the American car company executives were more concerned about the long term viability of their financial portfolio.

The American car companies kept pushing SUVs to the American public, and now they can barely remain as a viable business. Only lately i.e. within the past five years have they become more interested in developing hybrid cars, and this is mainly because the development of fuel efficient vechicles, such as hybrid cars, has been mandated by our federal government. American car companies continually lay off workers because they did not see the importance of placing fuel efficiency as one of the most important criteria when developing a car. Only today we are starting to see fuel efficient hybrid cars being developed by the American car companies, after Toyota and Honda placed these into the market place.

American car companies can start to get us out of the mess they put us in by pushing energy saving and fuel efficiency as a priority in advertising, instead of running commercial ads showing monolithic SUVs driving through rivers and up mountain roads. American car companies need to start thinking about what is good for our country and start marketing to a higher degree hybrid cars, and guess what, they can still sell hybrid cars and fuel efficient vehicles and make a profit, as proven by Toyota and Honda.

Honda and Toyota are doing extremely well. Toyota is the number one selling car company in the world. To put it bluntly, either the people at Toyota and Honda are smarter then the executives of the American car companies, or the American car companies are not able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and start to compete head-on with Toyota and Honda. Many years ago Toyota and Honda had the insight to realize that frugality and fuel economy is really what will win out in the end.

American car companies advertise SUVs with the premise of their ads being a way to get away from the city and the monotony of life by getting back to nature. The fact of the matter is SUVs are major contributors to environmental problems.

Hybrid Cars Contribute Less to Global Warming

Carbon monoxide emissions are directly proportional to fuel consumption. The heavier the vehicle the higher the fuel consumption. So these monolithic vehicles are greater polluters. The SUV therefore is contributing to global warming to a much greater degree compared to smaller and lighter vehicles. Hybrid cars on the other hand contribute very little to global warming.

Global Warming NASA CENTIGRADE GLOBAL WARMING CHART image from: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ The following headlines were recently syndicated to the major newspapers around the country: Earth Warmest in at Least 400 Years It’s Hot, and We’re to Blame Study: Earth’s Temperature Is at a 400-Year High Wired News MSNBC TechNewsWorld USA Today Chicago Tribune

Global warming has increased steadily over the past several decades. SUVs have done their part in the development of global warming. Currently, we only have one planet to live on, therefore is it not prudent to take care of this planet? Sport utilities are heavy vehicles which means they put out a greater amount of carbon monoxide. Excessive carbon monoxide emissions lead to global warming. Hybrid cars on the other hand produce much less carbon monoxide emissions.

The following is interesting statistics on fuel economy and global warming contribution between a typical SUV and a hybrid car:

Image courtesy of Why do SUVs suck?

To Many SUVs and Not Enough Hybrid Cars

In reality, only 5 percent of SUVs are ever taken off-road, and most of these vehicles are used for everyday driving. The said fact is there are still a lot of them on the road. In 1985, SUVs accounted for only 2 percent of new vehicle sales. In 2001 SUVs accounted for one in four new vehicles sold, and at that time sales were climbing. In 1999, Honda released the two-door Insight, the first hybrid car to hit the mass market in the United States. In 2000, Toyota released the Toyota Prius, the first hybrid four-door sedan available in the United States. During this time, SUV sales were doing well so American car companies kept marketing SUVs to the American public.

Fast forward to 2008, and now we are in a fuel crisis with gas prices sky rocketing and American car companies are doing poorly as a business. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the heavy SUV usage in this country has played a major role in the development of super high fuel costs.

Yes, I realize that it will take time to get SUVs off the road and concomitantly place more hybrid cars on the roads. The new SUVs produced today can still be on the road for the next 15 or 20 years. But the SUV removal process must be started by discouraging individuals from buying new SUVs and encourage individuals to buy fuel efficient vehicles such as hybrid cars.

I do believe there is light on the horizon, given the long waiting list for those who want to purchase a hybrid car from Toyota or Honda. But unfortunately, there are still those who don’t get it and keep buying SUVs. Hence the need for the start of this campaign and the need for this website. All patriotic individuals should encourage their friends and family to purchase energy saving vehicles. We must all do are part to do what is best for our country.

It really comes down to doing what is right. Yes, you can purchase what you want with your hard earned money. But we must all display a certain morale standard and do what is right for the long term benefit of our country. Send the American car companies a message by placing less demand for SUVs and a greater demand for hybrid cars. Do we really want our children to pay 6 or 7 dollars for a gallon of gas.

What many people do not realize is that a Gas Guzzler Tax has been on the books since 1978. The problem is this tax only applies to cars and not SUVs. This tax is applied to the purchase of a car which gets less then 22.5 MPG (combined city/highway). This tax as it stands today is basically useless because most cars achieve a gas mileage of 22.5 anyway. Is it not time for SUVs to be taxed more then fuel efficient vehicles such as hybrid cars?

For those who want to do something productive which contributes to the removal of SUVs from the American roads, go to the left side navigational bar and there you will find a link to a letter that you can send to your Congressman. The gist of this letter is to encourage the formation of a SUV tax. Heavy SUV usage means we all have to pay more at the pump. Should not SUV owners therefore pay their fair share for contributing to the current fuel crisis. As stated earlier in this article, here SUV refers to the gas slurping type, not the fuel efficient and hybrid SUVs that have recently entered the market.

On the left navigation bar you will also find another link to a letter you can send to an American car company. The gist of this letter is to let the American car companies know that as an American, you would prefer that they market fuel efficient vehicles, and not low fuel efficiency SUVs. Go to GM, Chevrolet, and Ford, copy paste, and send the letter.

Using Water to Produce Hydrogen for Fuel Efficiency

Given that fuel prices have skyrocketed, viable alternatives for fuel efficiency are starting to be developed. If you are not ready to purchase a hybrid vehicle, how about using water to produce hydrogen. Using hydrogen fuel for cars is not as difficult as it sounds, nor will it cause your car any harm.

True, there are some scams floating about which are giving people the wrong idea about using water to power your car. These are easy to spot because they will tell you to use water in your fuel tank! This is obviously something you should not do. Hydrogen fuel for cars is a little more technical than that, but the concept is really quite simple. In any case, if you want to expand your knowledge about fuel efficiency, I invite you to learn about this interesting topic. There are a number of ads on this page dealing with this method for fuel efficiency. Click on these ads to learn more about this topic.

Hybrid Cars - Conclusion

In conclusion, we must all do our part in terms of reducing the demand on fuel. Most of us need to drive. If we must drive, we must move away from driving vehicles with poor fuel efficiency and start thinking about what is good for our country. Fuel prices do not need to be so high. Purchase an energy efficient vehicle such as a hybrid car, help bring down the cost of fuel, and concomitantly save money in the long run. Hopefully intelligent frugality is the way of the future for Americans, and not bombastic excess.

Resources:
1) “The Unstoppable SUV,” Keith Naughton. Newsweek, July 2, 2001
2) “Bad Sports”, Paul Roberts. Harper’s Magazine. April 2001
3) Newsweek