Considering prices at the pump
are pushing a buck a litre, global warming is on the
march, plus the fact your emission-spewing gas-guzzler
is no friend to your asthmatic patients — maybe
it's time to think about a more efficient car.
Well here's some good news. Hybrid
cars — which use a combination of internal-combustion
gasoline engine and battery-powered electric motors
— have come a long way since the diminutive Honda
Insight two-seater and the half-baked first generation
Toyota Prius of a few years ago.
Today's hybrids are bigger, more
stylish, a touch luxurious but still more efficient
than any gasoline car. Intrigued? Read on.
WHAT'S
IN THE STOVE?
The first big question people have about hybrid cars
is "how do they work?" A hybrid car is equipped with
both regular gas and electric motors connected to a
battery. While the car is moving or braking, the generators
use that motion energy to charge the batteries —
so in some driving situations, the battery power takes
over and in others you're running on gasoline.
The advantage here is that unlike
purely electric cars, you don't have to plug in and
you aren't limited to driving short distances, but compared
to gasoline-only cars you get a lot of kilometres to
the litre.
The other big question is "how
much further will a tank of gas take me in a hybrid?"
The answer to that question depends very much upon where
you'll be driving.
The main advantage of hybrids in
the city is that they don't waste energy by idling in
traffic — the gas engine simply shuts off —
so unlike conventional cars, that's where they perform
best. But hybrids are no slouches on the highway either.
Because they recharge using a process called regenerative
braking, where the energy from slow deceleration goes
to charge the batteries, the constant slowing-down and
speeding-up of highway driving also benefits from the
hybrid's efficiency.
THE
COLD HARD FACTS
For an example, the 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid, powered
by a gas-electric combo, will go 100 kilometres on just
6.7 litres of fuel in the city and 8.1 litres on the
highway, according to Ford's own estimates. The compact
SUV's V6-equipped gasoline-only model burns 13.3 litres
of fuel for every 100 city kilometres.
The Escape Hybrid looks even better
when compared to that whale of SUVs, the Cadillac Escapade
ESV, which quaffs 18.9 litres for 100 km of urban driving
and 12.9 litres for 100 km on the freeway.
And the Hybrid Escape is still
as big and equipped as its conventional sibling. It
seats five, can pack away 782 cubic centimetres of cargo
(and more with the rear seats folded down) and can tow
up to 450 kilograms.
GO
BROKE SAVING MONEY
But here's the catch: according to CanadianDriver online,
a properly-equipped (anti-lock brakes, air conditioning,
etc) Ford Escape Hybrid will cost you about $42,000,
while a similarly-optioned Ford Escape Limited will
set you back $37,600 — so you'll have to do a lot
of driving before you feel the savings at the pump.
But you might save on your taxes
first. Ontario and British Columbia are the first provinces
to offer tax incentives to buyers of hybrid cars, $1,000
and $2,000 respectively. More could be on the way —
Dan McTeague, Liberal MP for Pickering-Scarborough East,
is leading a charge in parliament to have the federal
government match provincial tax breaks, potentially
saving consumers $2,000 to $4,000 when they buy a hybrid
vehicle.
THE
LINEUP
Besides the Ford Escape, there are quite a few other
hybrid options to tempt you — there's the latest
Toyota Prius, a mid-size sedan that shed its once-hideous
exterior for a nicer new look in 2004. Other than the
miniscule Insight, Honda also offers a hybrid version
of the four-door Civic and now the larger and more luxurious
hybrid Honda Accord, which won the Canadian Car of the
Year Best New Alternative Power award for 2005.
The Accord Hybrid employs a new
technology called Variable Cylinder Management to maximize
highway efficiency. It works by shutting down cylinders
in the engine when the vehicle doesn't need the power,
like when it's cruising along on the highway and doesn't
need a lot of acceleration.
All of this technology makes the
brawny V6 Accord sip fuel like a four-cylinder Civic,
using only 6.4 litres of black gold for 100 km of highway
driving.
Toyota's Lexus division is also
offering a hybrid version of its RX SUV, although at
a base price of $62,000, it may not be the prescription
for anyone seeking economy.
ACCELERATE
TO THE FUTURE
With today's consumers tired of high fuel prices, which
all indicators say are here to stay, and with hybrid
engine prices veering closer to the gas-only siblings,
these green machines look primed for the mainstream.
Most automakers have a plan to offer some hybrid options,
and Toyota, the market leader, claims it will offer
all its models as hybrids by 2010.
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PHYSICIAN LIFE
