This article reports on the fact that most hybrids actually do not
get much better mileage than standard cars. Manufacturers are using
the electrical engines to improve performance rather than increase
mileage; whereas improved mileage is the reason that these cars
qualify for large tax credits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/automobiles/17hybrid.html?ex=1279252
800&en=ae427a90941e848d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&em
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- New York Times
Hybrid Cars Burning Gas in the Drive for Power
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: July 17, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 16 - Mark Buford is happy with the Honda Accord
hybrid that he bought six months ago, and he has already driven it
13,000 miles. He was determined to buy a hybrid electric car, he
said, and this one is clean, "green" and accelerates faster than the
nonhybrid version. He just cannot count on it to save much gasoline.
Many people concerned with oil consumption, including President Bush
and members of Congress, are pointing to hybrids - vehicles with
electric motors as well as internal combustion engines - as a way to
reduce fuel use and dependence on imported oil. The first ones to
reach the market did that; the two-seat Honda Insight, introduced in
December 1999, was rated at 70 miles per gallon, and it was followed
by the five-seat Toyota Prius, also built for reduced fuel
consumption. Those cars have no nonhybrid equivalents. Then came the
Civic hybrid, designed to perform almost as well as the original,
only using a lot less gasoline.
But the pendulum has swung. The 2005 Honda Accord hybrid gets about
the same miles per gallon as the basic four-cylinder model, according
to a review by Consumer Reports, a car-buyer's guide, and it saves
only about two miles a gallon compared with the V-6 model on which it
is based. Thanks to the hybrid technology, though, it accelerates
better.
Hybrid technology, it seems, is being used in much the same way as
earlier under-the-hood innovations that increased gasoline
efficiency: to satisfy the American appetite for acceleration and
bulk.
Despite the use of hybrids to achieve better performance with about
the same fuel economy, consumers who buy the cars continue to get a
tax credit that the Internal Revenue Service allows under a "clean
fuels" program that does not take fuel savings into account.
And the image of hybrids as fuel-stingy workhorses persists. In a
June 15 speech at an energy forum, Mr. Bush proposed a tax credit of
up to $4,000 to "encourage people to make right choices in the
marketplace that will make us less dependent on foreign sources of
oil and to help improve our environment."
But some hybrids save hardly any fuel, energy efficiency advocates
say. "The new ones are all being used for power," said Kateri
Callahan, the president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit
advocacy group based here.
Hybrids should be encouraged, Ms. Callahan said, because their
electric components some day could be useful in an all-electric car,
perhaps running on a fuel cell. But she added that the government
should be careful about which hybrids it subsidizes through tax
benefits. Now, she said, the car companies are "building to the
high-end market. They think people want performance."
The companies may have sized up their customers pretty well. Mr.
Buford, for example, bought his Accord hybrid in January, a month
after the model came out, replacing a 2001 Accord coupe.
Mr. Buford, a telecommunications analyst at Kraft Foods who works in
the Chicago area, said he decided on a hybrid because he wanted to
"go green," although he added, "I wasn't willing to make any of the
trade-offs normally associated with a hybrid." He said he liked the
way that the electric motor on his new car kicked in early during
acceleration, at a speed range in which the V-6 gasoline engine is
relatively weak. And its emissions of smog-forming pollutants are
low, he said. (The Environmental Protection Agency puts the hybrid
and nonhybrid Accords in the same emissions category).
If sold at list price, the hybrid costs about $3,300 more than the
V-6 with no hybrid. Mr. Buford said he was not sure if the gas
savings would ever pay for the difference. But in that price range -
about $30,000 - many buyers are not looking for a car that is the
cheapest to buy or to operate.
Mr. Buford said he expected that when he files his taxes next April,
the purchase will cut his tax bill by about $600. The tax credit will
begin to be phased out in 2006.
The Accord hybrid is not alone in using technology for power; the
Toyota Highlander and the Lexus RX330, two premium vehicles, both
gained horsepower when they were produced as hybrids. When Lexus
created a hybrid version of the RX330 it kept the same 3.3-liter
engine, but to get across the idea that the hybrid had as much power
as a vehicle with a 4-liter engine it named it the RX400h.
In the Accord, the mechanism was simple
