I sent Mr. Phelan an e-mail the day after I first saw that article about three weeks ago. He is misinformed and did a bad thing to the image of Hybrids with his ridiculous article. Here is the text of the e-mail I sent him. No reply from him yet:

"Your article on Hybrids MPG was flawed and stories like this are hurting Hybrid sales and thus the environment. Your story was not balanced at all, it was more an attack on the Hybrids, using incorrect testing methods.

As an owner of a 2004 manual tranny Honda Civic Hybrid, I speak from experience. I have owned the car for almost 7 months, and I am achieving EPA numbers for the first 9,000 miles of ownership. Many drivers are FAR FAR exceeding EPA numbers in their hybrids. Browse on over to greenhybrid.com and look at the Real Mileage Database. You will see the great MPG numbers this fabulous and amazing technology allows drivers to achieve, something never before possible in 4 door cars, diesel or otherwise, until Hybrids hit the USA. There is one driver average 92 MPG over the life of his Honda Insight !!

All cars suffer in the cold of winter, not just hybrids, you know that, right? Cars do not reach peak MPG efficiency until they warm up and reach peak operating temps. Hybrids included. And running the A/C compressor in winter puts double whammy on MPG figures, which is where your defroster problem came into play.

Are you aware that there is a way to disable the A/C compressor with the defroster on in a Civic Hybrid? That eliminates the A/C penalty for defrosting.

I think you should do your research and write ANOTHER article that highlights all the benefits of Hybrids and how there are THOUSANDS of hybrid owners who are learning to drive for max MPG and exceeding EPA numbers."

He has some sort of anti-Hybrid agenda up his sleeve. Maybe he's taking money under the table from some of the companies who do not have Hybrids to bad mouth them....? All I know is that he peed me off bigtime !!!