High-mileage hybrids change driving environment

High-mileage hybrids change driving environment

Other agents at her upscale Fair Oaks real estate office drive Mercedeses, Lexuses and Cadillacs. But Gail Rich's car is the one everyone's checking out these days.

"You go down the street and people stare," she says with a giggle. "At the gas station, everyone asks about it. They want you to show them under the hood. They still think you have to plug it in somewhere."

Rich is the openly proud owner of what has become the most talked about car this year in California: a fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly hybrid.

Her Toyota Prius, a humpback little car with an eager-looking forward tilt, boasts two engines under the hood. An electric motor runs the car at idle or low speeds and a gas engine kicks in at higher cruising speeds.

"Prius drivers are like a little club," she says. "When you spot them, you kind of wave at them."

There may be no other set of car owners in America today so thrilled by their vehicles. Many see themselves as techno-revolutionaries, much like Apple computer owners in the 1980s.

While Rich and other hybrid buyers exude cultlike devotion, the impact hybrids will have on the auto market in the long run remains an open question.

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