Prometheus 6

Waving Yellow Flag on 'Green' Hybrid Vehicles
Consumer advocates say the gas-electric cars help less in the pocketbook than their high mileage ratings might imply.

…But consumer advocates say the marketing glosses over a few things, including the true operating cost of the cars, despite their fabled fuel economy. "If you're looking at this purely as a pocketbook decision, the hybrid won't work," says Gabriel Shenhar, senior auto test engineer for Consumer Reports magazine, although he has no quarrel with the hybrids' environmental credentials.

The three main reasons:

• Although the Prius and Honda's Civic and Insight hybrids do get terrific gas mileage, in real-world use they rarely match the extraordinary fuel economy the Environmental Protection Agency gets on its test circuit. [[P6: false point - NO car get real-world mileage that equals the EPA estimates]

• The federal government is gradually rolling back the tax deduction hybrid buyers can claim — it was $2,000 last year but $1,500 this year. Unless Congress renews it, the deduction will keep declining until it disappears in 2007. [P6: fair to consider, but actually supports the lower cost claim]

• Analysts at Internet car shopping and information service Edmunds.com say the technology that makes hybrids appealing is improving so quickly that today's vehicles are likely to depreciate faster than conventional cars as new hybrids arrive.

Edmunds' "true-cost-to-own" formula shows that because of depreciation, a Prius or Civic Hybrid probably would cost $1,000 more over a five-year period than a comparable Corolla or conventional Civic. [P6: depreciation is like opportunity costs—something you copnsider but not something you pay]

What's more, the life span of the hybrids' expensive high- voltage battery packs is an issue that occasionally raises concerns. California and five other states require hybrids to be covered by a manufacturer's warranty for 10 years or 150,000 miles. [P6: this is a problem for…who?]

Spokesmen for Toyota and Honda say they have not yet had a claim for replacement of the massive battery packs — which are as wide as the cars themselves and carry a list price of about $3,000. The price is expected to decline as battery technology improves. Toyota engineers have talked about $1,000 replacement costs a few years from now.

"We expect the batteries to outlive the warranties," says Gunnar Lindstrom, head of marketing for alternative-fuel vehicles at American Honda Motor Co. in Torrance.