anyone with a hybrid car?

As someone who worked for Toyota for 2 years my advice....Don't buy one.

They are great cars, I love the Prius and the hybrid concept is fantastic, but if you're doing it to be economical and save gas $ you're much better off with a less expensive but nice 4 cyl car, such as a civic, scion, corolla, or even 4 cyl Camry. 

You'll pay almost 1/2 as much for the car and only get maybe 5-10 MPG less in real-world daily driving.  I saw a study that showed assuming $2.75 gas, you'd have to drive an like extra 450,000 miles in a hybrid to justify the price difference between it and a car $10,000 less.  Not to mention with everyone all up-in-arms about the gas prices dealerships are jacking the selling prices through the roof.  We were selling Prius for $6,000 over sticker and people were fighting each other to buy them at that price.

Great cars, neat technology, not worth the money.  If you have the money to burn, go for it though.

OK, found the article.  http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/21/pf/autos/hybrid_sense/index.htm

It's comparing non-hybrid versions to the hybrid counterpart, such as the civic vs. the civic hybrid. 

"But you pay a lot for that fuel efficiency. To see how much more, consider the hybrid version of the Honda Civic and upcoming Ford Escape SUV, which both cost about $3,200 more than their respective non-hybrid versions.

To make up the difference in price, Kelley Blue Book estimated that the average Civic Hybrid driver would have to travel at least 180,000 miles, assuming $2.15 a gallon of gas. (If gas prices stay lower than that, you'd have to drive even more to make up the difference.)"

 Only about $3000 difference between the civic and the civic hybrid and it'd take 180,000 miles to make up the cash difference.  For a Prius, obviously there is no Toyota non-hybrid version but a 4cly camry can be had for less that $20,000 all day long.  Try over $30K for a Prius.  Fugidaboutit!  I'll take my $15,000 Scion which gets almost the MGP all day anyday.

It's peppy, that's for sure!  Don't be fooled into thinking hybrids are slow like golf carts, the electric motor has far more torque than a gas motor.

Check out this Hybrid....over 400 miles on a single 13.7 gallon tank and 0-60 in 4 seconds.  I love Toyota

http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/future/volta.html

I've had my Jetta Wagon TDI for about 2 months now. I love it. I consistently get 50+mpg and I've had the air conditioning running almost every second. I'm also still breaking mine in (only have about 3750 miles on it). It only cost me about $1000 more than the regular gas model (and I compensated for that by getting the standard transmission).

I considered getting a hybrid escape, but the price, and the fuel economy sold me on the VW.

The hybrid cars get an improvement compared to a conventional gasoline car on average gas mileage because the gasoline engine is much smaller and runs near its most efficient operating point most of the time. The electric motor supplements the gas engine when high power is needed to accelerate thus reducing the need for a bigger engine for peak power. When cruising at steady speed, a portion of the gasoline engine's power is used to power the motor/generator to charge the batteries. The cruising mode is a very efficient regime for the engine to operate in contrast to the inefficient operation of a gasoline engine at low rpm and high power condition that is needed to accelerate from a stop. The hybrid cars also have regenerative braking where the electric motor is used as a generator to decelerate the car and recover a portion of the energy of braking to charge the batteries.

So the gain in mpg are due to 1) smaller gas engine, 2) more efficient operation, 3) regenerative braking. The losses are 1) extra weight for batteries and electric/motor generator, 2) extra cost for the batteries, motor/generator and the complicated electronic controls that raise the initial price of the car.

Geezerette #1 bought a Prius as her first car that she purchased on her own. The Geezer was quite proud. She gets 45 to 50 mpg which is pretty good for a 5 passenger car.

TW