Should I wait for my Hybrid ?
by: sahail
Posted on: Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 1:43 pm by: sahail
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There are some people out there who are not yet making the big leap forward. They’ve thought about it, have looked at all the options, read the brochures and seen the TV ads. But they still won’t make the decision to buy a hybrid vehicle. They just won’t do it.
There are a number of reasons for this. Some of them are quite obvious. No one wants to spend money if they don’t really have to, for example. I have a car; I don’t need to save the planet. But there are other reasons for not buying which, when looked at rationally, can be exposed as artificial, created reasons. If you are in a position to buy a new vehicle then you have choices. If that list of choices does not include a hybrid vehicle then that is pretty much your decision. Isn’t it?
Here are just two of the myths about hybrids that cause people to throw their hands up and state, with a panicky expression on their faces, that they are not going to buy ‘one of those’, at least not yet anyway.
I’m waiting for the really, really big savings.
There are some people out there who believe that, at some point in the distant future, having a hybrid car will pay off in a much bigger way than it does currently. And it is all to do with mileage. These naysayers believe that the way hybrids are actually run will go through significant changes over the next say, ten years, and this will lead to even more efficient cars. That is when these people will buy the hybrids.
Unfortunately for them, this is not going to happen. Hybrids are more economic to run, but that is because they are just different to conventional engine vehicles. They avoid fuel over burn, and cut down on energy usage when the car isn’t running at full pelt. But they just don’t have the weight that conventional engine cars do. This is because conventionals have a lot more stuff on them.
There are a number of comforts that they have that hybrids don’t, and all of these add up. Hybrids can only really develop up rather than down, which means that as they get more comfortable and improve acceleration, then their efficiency will be reduced.
So the answer to all those people who think that there is going to be some magical leap forward when it comes to the technology that drives the hybrids is very simple: there isn’t. Hybrids are lighter, and they use technology to spot fuel wastage and deal with it. This is not going to change much from now on. Basically, these late adopters of the technology are asking for something that has been around for a lot longer than the car sitting in their drive. What they want is a bicycle.
Compressed What?
Compressed air. That’s right, compressed air. The stuff you breathe. Apparently they will build a car that runs on the air that surrounds us sometime in the next few years. This is of course total hogwash.
There are developments when it comes to electricity and hydrogen of course, but having these vehicles on the road and ready (not to mention affordable) is at least five years away. Electric is nearer to full market accessibility than any other new technology, and the conservatives (and pro hybrid) see the things on the road at around 2015. So all that talk about waiting for something better than the hybrid cars that we have here and now is basically ill informed.
Next post we will look at three more common excuses for waiting to buy that hybrid.
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But jumping in has a payoff for some people too - think about the iPhone - the people that were first to have it were pretty cool! But now of course, they are behind the times since Apple brought out a new one.
Same thing happens all new technology.. you are either the sucker, or the slowpoke. There's no winning.