He didn't derive anything. His numbers come from the link he provided, which is a report from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments meeting on May 17 (not 11 months ago). If you follow the link in the "article", which is actually a blog entry, you'll see ther eport that he's talking about.

There you'll see that the part of Virginia considered as part of "Metropolitan Washington, DC" has 4 hybrids per 1000 people (or 10.73 per 1000 households). That dwarfs the nationwide figures of 1.37 (or 3.31). I would not be at all surprised if California had higher numbers, and there may be others, but there are a LOT of hybrids in Northern VA.

The Northern VA numbers also dwarf the other parts of the Metro DC region. NOVA accounts for about 45% of all vehicles in the Metro region, but it accounts for about 70% of the hybrids. The graphs which break things down further are also interesting -- I particularly like the last one.

Since the "article" is actually a blog entry, the point of it is to point people to information and allow them to digest and perhaps comment on it.

Here is a direct link to the MWCOG PowerPoint presentation.

The data is 11 months old. Check the second page of the PowerPoint file and the fifth paragraph of his article. The DC, Maryland, and VA DMV information is from July 1, 2005. It was presented May 17th, but the information's from 11 months old.

I'm not attacking you, David. I'm glad you brought the article here. The statistics are interesting, but the article (blog?) surrounding them is misleading and poorly written. That's all I'm saying.

Let's break down the article. The first two paragraphs say nothing. The third paragraph lists numbers. The third paragraph asserts VA is overrun by hybrids, then lists numbers about hybrid ownership. The rest of the article cites references and tells personal anecdotes.

Let's focus on the third paragraph. What does overrun mean? Are hybrids clogging the roads? Are they a safety hazard? Are they taking up too many paarking spaces? He doesn't define it or cite any evidence that there are too many hybrids. So, NoVA has a higher percentage of hybrids than the national average. Of course it does. It's an upper-middle class area which permits hybrids to use the HOV lanes.

According to the 2000 census, 12.3% of the US population is Black or African American. In Virginia, 19.3% of the population is Black or African American. Are we being overrun by BoAA people? No, there's just more.

I'm not attacking you either.

Many times "old" data is the newest data available. Considering that WCOG appears to have simply compiled data collected by other entities, 11 months is not old at all.

You read "overrun" as a negative, I just read it as "more than you would expect".

BTW, I've already spent enough time on this topic, so I'm exiting now.