This article appeared on the
www.centredaily.com. It is very interesting to see how perceptions on Hybrids are changing. Is the government lying to us?
By John O'Dell
Los Angeles Times
Sticker shock -- compounded by what might be called odometer shock -- has turned off many would-be buyers of gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles. And that has prompted an influential analyst to reduce his forecast for the growth of hybrids in the global auto market.
Sometimes-stiff price premiums and disappointing real-world fuel economy are taking some of the luster off hybrids just as diesel engines are starting to shine, Global Insight Inc. forecaster Philip Gott said.
Gott, who previously predicted that hybrids of all types would account for as much as 90 percent of the U.S. auto market by 2025, said in a new report that they would top out at about 12 percent of the global market, including 12 percent to 15 percent in the U.S. They currently account for less than 2 percent of the market in the U.S.
If Gott misread the tea leaves, as he acknowledged in a recent interview, that was because the brew changed along the way.
At the time of his initial forecast in 2001, hybrids were quite new, and motorists thought that the vehicles would achieve their federally estimated mileage in real-world driving.
Repeated reports from users and outside testers, notably Consumer Reports magazine, have since shown that many hybrids get 20 percent to 30 percent lower mileage than government estimates. That's largely because the vehicles are most efficient in heavy stop-and-go traffic and less efficient in high-speed highway driving that makes up about half of most motorists' travel.
Many owners of Toyota Motor Corp.'s popular Prius, rated at 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 mpg on the highway, say they typically average 40 mpg to 45 mpg in daily use. Still, most hybrid models deliver 25 percent to 30 percent better fuel economy than their counterparts equipped with conventional gasoline engines.
That's not good enough to enable most owners to save enough at the fuel pump to justify a hybrid's higher purchase price, said Gott, who based his findings on government mandates for carbon dioxide reduction, which comes from improved mileage, and studies of motorist experiences.
"I was in California the other day, and it was funny to see all the Priuses running in the HOV lanes," he said of the sedan, one of the hybrids allowed to use California's high-occupancy-vehicle lanes with only one person aboard. "That's when they are least efficient."
At the same time, diesels, long considered too dirty and smelly for general use, have become cleaner.
Newly developed emission-control technologies can be expected to make diesel engines the fuel-efficiency choice of most automakers in the next decade, said Gott, director of the Boston-based think tank's automotive consulting practice.
Diesel fuel economy equals or bests that of most hybrids, he noted, and the engines add a smaller premium than hybrids do at dealerships.
