Life in the slow lane

If you are a virtuous Prius owner (a redundancy, we know) or drive any other fuel-efficient hybrid, your virtue is being questioned. At least it is in California where a Prius backlash has emerged. Here's what started it. California, in an effort to reward the fuel efficient, allowed solo hybrid drivers to use HOV lanes, normally reserved for cars with two or more occupants, preferably non-dummies. That means about 50,000 hybrids that get at least 45 mpg have carpool-lane stickers in California. That's enough to make HOV lanes as clogged as regular lanes. (By contrast, in Pittsburgh, you can grow old and lonely in an HOV lane.)

Carpoolers accuse the hybriders of driving too slowly in order to maximize their fuel efficiency, reports the Los Angeles Times. To put it another way, these hybrid drivers have the galling habit of observing the speed limit. The same wrangle is being played out in Virginia. Several car dealers in Northern Virginia said the HOV exemption has driven sales, outweighing gas savings for some buyers. The special lanes got so overloaded the state placed curbs on hybrid drivers using them in peak hours.

Virtuous or posers?

From the AP
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The Prius backlash isn't confined to California. On a recent episode of Comedy Central's "South Park," one of the cartoon characters persuades everyone to buy a hybrid. But hybrids end up creating their own air pollution. Not smog. "Smug."

Prius-driving Travis Ruff is familiar with the sentiment behind the ridicule. "There's a mentality out there that we're a bunch of liberal hippies or we're trying to make some statement on the environment," the real estate agent told the Los Angeles Times. "People are a lot less friendly than when I drove a Mercedes."

Then there's writer Joe Queenan's withering assessment: "When owners of gas-guzzling SUVs theatrically ditch them in favor of economical, politically correct hybrids, they do not do so because of a long delayed awakening of social conscience, or a desire to reduce fuel emissions, or even because they want to help their country reduce its dependence on foreign fuel, but because hybrids are suddenly fashionable, and can be seamlessly integrated into an individual's lifestyle. 'I used to drive a massive vehicle that needlessly endangered the lives of everyone else on the road. But now I've changed.'"

"The problem," says the L.A. Times, "could be that, having been the object of so much public approval, hybrids were due for a comedown almost presidential in scope."

Hybrid sales

Hybrids, using a combination of gas and electric power, get up to 60 miles a gallon and emit considerably smaller amounts of harmful gases than conventional cars. According to hybridcars.com, hybrid sales have risen consistently since the Honda Insight debuted in 1999.

2000: 9,350
2001: 20,287
2002: 35,000
2003: 47,525
2004: 88,000
2005: 205,749
2006: 48,685 (through March)

Hybrids represented 1.2 percent of the total vehicles sold in 2005. The Toyota Prius was tops with 107,897 cars sold -- 52 percent of the hybrid market.

Regional breakdown

Top five states for new hybrids registered: California, 25,021; Virginia, 5,613; Washington, 3,441; Florida, 3,272; and Maryland, 3,238.

Top five metro areas: Los Angeles, 10,399; San Francisco, 8,051; Washington D.C., 6,473; New York, 3,779; and Seattle, 2,857. (2004 figures, hybridcars.com)

Hybrid future

J.D. Power has the most conservative forecast: a plateau of 3 percent of the American market for 2010. The most optimistic: Booz Allen Hamilton, a technology-consulting firm, says hybrid cars will have an 80 percent market-share by 2015. Hybridcars.com takes the middle ground: Hybrids as a percent of all vehicles will remain modest for a long time. With all the buzz, it should be pointed out that many of today's hybrids aren't as fuel efficient as they pretend to be.

Nobody's perfect

From an article by Bradley Berman of Business Week, posted on msnbc.com:

With the emergence of performance-oriented hybrids, environmentalists see the technology as one more example of how Big Auto has hoodwinked consumers into believing their products are as green as they can possibly get. The Union of Concerned Scientists has applied the term "hollow hybrid" to General Motor's offerings. UCS's Jason Mark thinks the technology should be put to better use than turning a 16-mpg vehicle into an 18-mpg vehicle. "The point is not to turn extreme gas-guzzlers into moderate gas guzzlers."

Jumpstart Ford thinks the company deserves credit for the Ford Escape Hybrid. But the same year that Ford released it, they "had the worst overall fuel-efficiency record. One hybrid doesn't let them off the hook for being the most wasteful auto maker," the group said.

Prius-producing Toyota has not escaped the wrath of environmentalists. BlueWater says Toyota has some good green technology, like the Prius. But Toyota "has consistently lobbied against every attempt to increase vehicle fuel economy." So nobody's fuel is entirely clean here.