I wouldnt go as far as say it's not a step forward, it's not the giant leap I would have liked. As for sales ploy, yes to some degree and I am guilty of "alling" for some of the hype as you point out.

No need to feel duped, I don't. But chances of me buying another hybrid is small unless I see real improvement in the numbers.

Would you have specific examples? I'd be curious what vehicles you are referring to? I know there are examples, but I can't think of any that compare well.

You also previously implied that there were other choices in vehicles that had cleaner emissions, I was under the impression that the TCH and most other hybrids rank quite high.

Not saying shooting for a higher goal is wrong, I'm just trying to understand how you have decided that hybrids are an underachievement compared with other options?

Two climate control systems, one inside and the other at the tailpipe.

2007 Camry Hybrid (in service June 2006)
FE: 6.67L/100km or 35.3 mpg (6.11L/100km or 38.5 mpg in summer)

We're bandying 15% around like it's gospel. Now that I've had the TCH for a while I've been average 43 - 44 mpg pretty consistantly lately. I have trouble believing that I'd be averaging 37 - 38 mpg if I were driving an LE Camry in mixed highway/city driving.

Rather than chastising the auto companies for not putting out 100 mpg cars yet, I'll reserve the right to be duped and remain happy with my car. And the TCH is a lot more car than a CRX. The goal shouldn't be to simply get the highest mileage, but to produce a car that people would wish to drive with excellent economy for the size. Yes, I could get better mileage from some other cars, but I wouldn't want to drive them, nor would I buy them.

Actually, the Prius and TCH are two of the cleanest vehicles available. I saw a government report and they headed the list. If I can remember the link I'll post it.

It's curious that everyone talks about the hybrid price premium without also noting that it's difficult or impossible to get a TCH, Prius, or HCH II without going on a waiting list that may be 2-3 months long. This suggests that hybrids are actually underpriced compared to their conventional counterparts. Lowering the price point for hybrids won't make them any easier to buy or increase their market penetration because the extra vehicles and the capacity to build them just does not exist at this point in time.

If my interpretation is correct, the bottleneck in production is the hybrid batteries. You can't make a long lasting hybrid battery pack by just assembling together a random collection of NiMH cells. Instead, a pack is made up of cells that are matched (by actually testing them individually) for their charge and discharge characteristics which is a time and labour intensive process given the number of cells required for a hybrid battery pack. Presumably the capacity to make hybrid battery packs will increase over time making it possible to build hybrids for a lower price point.

If my interpretation is correct, the bottleneck in production is the hybrid batteries. You can't make a long lasting hybrid battery pack by just assembling together a random collection of NiMH cells. Instead, a pack is made up of cells that are matched (by actually testing them individually) for their charge and discharge characteristics which is a time and labour intensive process given the number of cells required for a hybrid battery pack. Presumably the capacity to make hybrid battery packs will increase over time making it possible to build hybrids for a lower price point.

I just do not like to hear things like this, if anyone of us with our TCH cars now have a battery failure we may be sitting for 2-3 months waiting for one.

TCH-43mpg
VW TDI--48
08 LS 600 HL-20
08 LX 470-16

Toyota claims there was no battery failures on Prius yet, also there will be plenty of slightly used batteries from wrecks so I think you worry about nothing. There is not much that can fail inside battery especially that you would require total failure of large number of cells for the pack to not work anymore, outside of some broken connection since all cells are in series and one open circuit would break the whole pack. There is much bigger chance of mechanical failure of transaxle, one of MG's or all suporting electronics and converters. Also I really don't think the batteriies have to be matched since battery pack operates at 60-80% of full charge range and IMO part of the reason Toyota did that is to make sure no individual cell is overcharged or discharged to zero even if the cells are grossly missmatched.

The 2005-2006 3 seies BMW shot up 15% in FE and I think 20% in power (can't remember) over previous model year. I think the A4 also had a huge bump when they went to TDI.

As for clean... it was the Honda Civic GX that was the cleanest.

HCH I vs HCH II... not a big difference there... should have been more.

I had a Camry loaner about a month ago. I was getting 36+mpg without much effort. I could have probably raised my MPG higher had I used every technique that I use when driving a hybrid. So again, not that impressive.

As for my CRX... let's compare it to another apple instead of an orange. I was just using my example to show that back in the 80s we had cars already goind 40+ mpg. The insight does come close to me being impressed in that you can push an insight to double that figure... but with a lot of effort so it's more the driver than the car.

Again, they are not the cleanest. That honor goes to a non-hybrid.