What car to buy? A typical car shopper may find this question difficult to answer nowadays because vehicle purchase is no longer easy as it was before. Style, functionality, size, price and other aspects of personal preference are the major influences as to what car to buy. Buyers usually go for the trendy and affordable or the bulky and practical before automakers made cars not just powered by gas but by batteries as well or simply called hybrid vehicles. In the late 1990’s, the simple question of what car to buy became a different and complex question. Now we ask, gas powered or gas-and-battery powered car?
A major gas and hybrid issue is price. Although most hybrids are smaller than the usual vehicles, they are pricier. Brand new gas sedans are priced from $14,000 onwards while the hybrid sedans start from $19,000. The famous Toyota Prius hybrid is sold at $22,000, but promises a fuel efficiency rating of 50 mpg. The hybrids’ response to their price drawbacks is their fuel efficiency rating. It may take a couple of years for hybrid owners to recover what they invested in their gas and battery powered automobile, but after those time, they will enjoy the benefits of less gasoline station visits and less expenditure on gasoline. Gasoline prices are spiking to $3 per gallon these days and with its unstable trend, it is safe to predict that there will be more price hovering to come.
Going green had been an environmental campaign for hybrids as they produce fewer emissions than gas powered cars. Gasoline when burned, produce by products that contribute to the worsening greenhouse effect. Compared to these gas guzzlers, hybrid vehicles emit 80% less of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxide, and other particulate matters. For a cleaner earth, the American government is becoming more stringent on emission legality. Among all states, California has notably the most laws on auto emissions.
Hybrids are usually small than their gas-only counterparts. The Honda Insight and Toyota Prius are mid-sized sedans, a diversion from the previously loved big and bulky American cars. Sensitive to their market, American automakers are trying to solve this trouble by introducing big and bulky hybrid vehicles like the Ford Escape, Ford Edge Chevrolet Silverado and Chevrolet Tahoe. Also because the hybrid automotive market is dominated by the Japanese makers, significantly Toyota, the American automakers would also want to keep up. In fact, President Obama recently announced a $2.4 billion investment on the development of American plug-in cars and batteries.
