If you’re looking for a nice conversation starter these days, simply open with your thoughts on global warming. Everybody’s picking a side. From actors to politicians (you know who you are) to park rangers in Alaska, everybody seems to have a favorite target. And cars are smack-dab in the cross-hairs.

If you drive a car known as a hybrid, you must be especially pleased with yourself. Right up until now. I’m here to burst your bubble, because hybrids are a problem. In my opinion, they rank right up there with those stupid ’support our troops’ ribbons on cars. (you might as well put an “espouse meaningless epithets” sticker on your car, but that’s a rant for another day). It’ll accomplish precisely the same thing. A whole lot of nothing.

So, back to hybrids. This popular little word referring to fuel-sipping cars with a dual-propulsion drivetrain. Cars that are allowed to drive in the HOV lane with only one occupant. The word that says to the world, “I’m okay! I’m safe! I’m helping the environment, and I’m doing the right thing!”

According to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, purchasing or leasing a hybrid earns you up to a $3,400.00 tax break and an exemption on inspections. No wonder hybrid cars are selling like mad these days—Toyota dropped the price of a new Prius by a few hundred dollars, and has even transformed its 2007 World Car of the Year award-winning Lexus LS 460 into a hybrid, badged as the LS 600h, which has a base price of $104,000.

If you’ve purchased a hybrid to save on gasoline consumption, wonderful—no harm in wanting to conserve fuel, reduce emissions and spare your wallet further pain at the pump. However, if you purchased a hybrid because you somehow think you’re doing your part to save the planet, you are hilariously, unfortunately mistaken. They are a feel-good purchase only, and they do not fit economic reality. Do you think electricity is made in your wall? Is milk created in the grocery store? Water simply materializes out of your faucet, right?

Here’s the root of the problem. Are you aware that battery manufacturing is one of the single most polluting industries on earth? The materials in those exotic nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries must be strip-mined out of the earth (not exactly an earth-friendly activity) and processed, at huge energy consumption, into battery components, which, by the way, are going to have to be replaced at least once in the car’s life cycle. Honda and Toyota both have well thought out battery recycling programs. No guarantee all those battery components are completely recycled, though–I imagine some toxic components still find their way to the landfill. And you have to foot the bill, which will be at least $5,000.00. Is it really worth it? There is no advantage to owning a hybrid when the extra costs of battery replacement, and the extra energy consumption used to manufacture it are taken into consideration. What kind of power plant created that clean electricity? Was it a fossil-fuel burning power station, burning coal, fuel oil, oil shale or natural gas? Suddenly that electricity is not so clean. I’ve even read that a number of EMT and fire crews have announced they will refuse to rescue victims trapped in hybrid vehicles, because they fear electrocution and fatal acid burns. (1) Hmm. Not exactly a comforting thought, but I certainly don’t blame them.

I’m all for conserving our planet’s resources, but hybrids are clearly a temporary fix—they won’t change the realities of global warming, so don’t try to convince me you’re saving the planet. Continued gasoline conservation is fine, but also temporary, so I’m all for trying new things until we reach a better solution, because hybrids as we know them aren’t the answer. Therefore, I absolutely support any and all alternative power/alternative fuel research and development programs, perfect or not, such as continued ethanol biofuel/biomass research, Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), DiesOtto from Mercedes, or even Moteur Developpment International’s compressed air engine.

Unless our lifestyles change dramatically (let’s be honest, they aren’t going to anytime soon—we Americans, including me, like our cars way too much), and one of these companies steps forward with a truly better, more economically viable solution, I’m going to keep biting my tongue at gas prices, filling up, and happily driving away into the (smog-filled) sunset. The bottom line? If you’ve got to drive a car like most of us, then high gas prices are a reality in your life. You might as well own a car you actually like, instead of one that tries to make an unjustifiable “environmentally green” statement. You got a better idea?

References:

1. Brock Yates, Car and Driver, September 2005

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