Wrong idea guys. Toyota just celebrated its 500,000 hybrid sale. That leaves what... only about 150,000,000 others cars that are not hybrids (just in the U.S.). If you want people to drive green you have to make them want the vehicle. There are plenty of people that want to save on gas or save the environment or both. But they have competing needs. Like fitting their family into the car, or they have clients to pamper, or heavy loads to carry etc. Some needs may be more legit than others, and some may just be a matter of preference.

Toyota and Honda know that, hence hybrid SUVs, the GS and the Accord. Not everyone has fuel economy and pollution as their #1 concerns when they purchase a vehicle. This car is a good start. If they throw in cylinder deactivation, and a bigger battery and a plug.... Well, then it will still be out of my price range.

It will be a bit of irony that (hopefully) in a few years GM will offer a plug in hybrid hummer that burns E85. Some hardcore SUV fans will buy it. They will, like ~50% of the rest of us, drive back and forth to work, less than 25 miles per day, thus getting better than 100 mpg because their ICE will almost never run. Thus smokin' the fuel economy of the current generration Prius and HCH.

Fantasy? Look at how many people actually take their SUVs off road, close to none. In the same vein, it doesn't matter if the ICE produces 500 horsepower and gets 10 mpg, if it only runs for 5 minutes a week. I think hybrid technology is the answer, but we need to make people want the vehicles, rather than pummeling them for having a different set of needs.


With regard to questions about fuel economy (24/28 for the GS). A friend of mine had an BMW M3 (330 hp). It had a similar 0-60 time and weighed ~500 lbs less than a GS, and got <13mpg in town. So 24 mpg in town is a huge improvement.