Are Hybrid Cars Merely a Statement?

This weekend my parents and I did a little car shopping. We didn’t purchase anything nor do we plan to in the next year at the least. However, my parents were certainly interested in a hybrid car and both the Toyota Camry Hybrid and Nissan Altima Hybrid came to mind.

Our current family vehicles are composed of an old 1987 Toyota Cressida (discontinued long time ago), and a Ford Econoline Family Coach. Both aren’t very nice on the environment compared to modern vehicles available today, and the frequently driven Cressida is starting to show signs that it wants to retire. With future Canadian environmental laws planning to be put in effect, we were hoping to replace the Cressida with something that had low emissions so we wouldn’t have to pay a fine according to these laws as well as save money on gas. The government is also issuing a limited-time rebate ranging from $1000-$2000 for any low fuel consumption vehicles purchased; the lower the fuel consumption, the higher the rebate.

We first tried to find a Camry Hybrid we could look at, however the service at the Toyota dealership was quite crummy and when we did find someone who could help us, they didn’t have any available. I suggested we visit the Nissan dealership down the street. When we got there, I have to say that the service was much better. We even got a greeting which we didn’t get at Toyota. My father asked the car salesman Matt if they had any Altima Hybrids available. I didn’t even know that Nissan made a hybrid but they had two left, the other two were sold.

Matt found a black Altima Hybrid which we were able to take a look at. It was the first time I’ve seen a hybrid vehicle up close and it was extremely quiet. So quiet that we all thought it died when he pulled it up for us to take a look at it. Considering that it was a hybrid and it had some pretty cool features already included like keyless entry and operation, $34000ish CDN wasn’t a bad deal for this car. But we hardly knew what we would be getting into by purchasing a hybrid vehicle, so we headed home and I did some research.

At first I just went to find facts which compared the hybrid Camry and Altima. I found out that Nissan actually licensed the hybrid technology from Toyota, and in the end, both were almost equally efficient on fuel. Then I came across comments from various car weblogs saying that current hybrid vehicles are almost as efficient on fuel as their original counterparts. Apparently based on the comments, the technology is still early and is being used on the wrong vehicles which are originally quite efficient on fuel to begin with. It seems in the general public’s eye that anyone who owned a hybrid car was just making a statement and jumping on the bandwagon. If it were true that these hybrid spinoffs were just as efficient as the original versions, then this is all just a marketing thing. However, I wasn’t going to just believe 12 pages of unanimous commentary. I was going to dig up the facts myself.

Searching up stats on the fuel economy of different cars was simple. I stumbled on fueleconomy.gov and they had all the information I needed which made it real easy to compare. I cross-checked the numbers they had on their site with other various sites and it was consistent, then I put together a spreadsheet comparing the mileage of various hybrid vehicles and other useful facts such as greenhouse gas emissions and annual fuel cost according to their scenario.

Source: fueleconomy.gov

Assumed Fuel Prices:
* Regular: 2.88
* Premium: 3.08
* Electricity: 0.08 per kilowatt hour

Clearly according to these numbers, hybrids aren’t merely a statement (with the exception of the Aura and Accord whose city mileage is colored red). Compared to the original versions, there is a significant difference between city mileage, greenhouse gas emissions and annual fuel costs.