ARTICLE: $3 gas makes hybrids look real pretty

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news.../11/11wear.html

The Austin-American Statesman
Monday, June 11, 2007

So, there I was a couple of weeks ago, idling at a light in my 17-miles-to-the-gallon used Taurus, the one I spend about $35 filling up every five or six days.

Looking out, I could see the Shell station's price board: $3 plus for a gallon of regular. Just ahead was the back bumper of a new Prius hybrid, its sleek beige paint job, shiny chrome and 60 miles per gallon (in the city!) fuel economy rating silently mocking me.

I could see only the back of the driver's head. We've never met. I hated him.

I'm not the only person suffering from Prius envy. This latest spike in gas prices, along with long commutes in our ever-sprawling cities and a growing consensus that global warming is real and potentially calamitous, could be a tipping point for hybrid cars.

The economics of paying thousands more for a hybrid (over a comparable traditional model) are looking better all the time.

Sales of hybrids in May increased 91 percent over May 2006, with 45,000 of them rolling out of U.S. showrooms. In 2006, about 250,000 hybrids were sold in the United States, about five times the 2003 number. As recently as 2000, fewer than 10,000 hybrids were sold domestically.

Now, last year's figures still gave hybrids less than 2 percent of the market. And in Texas, just 0.2 percent of registered vehicles in May (38,709) were hybrids. Of course, that number includes all the vehicles sold in previous years still on the road, and the Texas figure will increase with every totaled nonhybrid or junker that wheezes its last.

Hybrids, if you haven't heard or have forgotten, have both a traditional engine powered by gasoline and an electric motor running off battery power. Slowing or braking generates electricity to keep the battery charged. Drive the right way, with gentle acceleration most of the time, and you can come close to the rated fuel economy numbers.

So, what are the economics? Bill Brown, customer relations manager at Champion Toyota, told me that for a monthly car payment at 10 percent interest, every $1,000 of car price adds about $22. So, $4,000 extra for a hybrid (the high side) would mean $88 more a month, less if you have good credit and thus a lower interest rate.

If I drive my Taurus 1,200 miles a month (and unfortunately I do, at minimum), that's about 70 gallons, or $210. It's been worse some months.

In a Prius, even at 45 miles per gallon (for a lead-foot like me), that would be 27 gallons: $81. That's a difference of almost $130.

Where do I sign?

It might even work for people who are, in the colorful phrase of car salesmen, "upside down," meaning they owe more on their existing car than it's worth. Those folks (including, sadly, me) would have to fold in that difference to the loan for their hybrid.

So far, there are only about a dozen hybrids on the market, including now some sedans and sport-utility vehicles that use more gas than the squatty Prius. More models are on the way.

In the interim, of course, you can hang on and wait for gas to fall back below $2 a gallon. Good luck with that.

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