With gas at or above $4 a gallon and a growing concern about our environment, more and more people are wondering whether or not buying a hybrid car is worth the extra money. These cars on your wallet are supposed to be better for the environment and easier, but are they the best choice for you?
There are advantages, as with all things, but there are also certain disadvantages. Take into account both the pros and cons to decide whether or not to buy a hybrid makes the most sense for you and your situation.
These are some of the obvious advantages of a hybrid car:
1. These use a mixture of electricity and petrol as their primary source of fuel rather than just oil, and as electricity is less costly these can often be much cheaper to operate.
2. There is no smog or haze generated by combustion, and electric cars can be much less harmful to the environment.
Of course, as you may imagine, there are also some very strong and obvious drawbacks to buying these types of hybrids which is why not everyone is rushing out to get one:
1. For one thing, they are more expensive than most comparable models of vehicles being sold. Not everyone can afford to buy hybrids and even if they could, in most cases it would take a lot of time to recoup the initial investment with fuel savings.
2. Many people today prefer to buy a used car, and since hybrids are relatively new on the market, there aren't many used cars available. Some people can't afford a new car.
3. There aren't many different models available in hybrids at this point. Some people need more room in their vehicles either because they have big families or they need to haul things for their job. For them, hybrids are just too small.
4. Since hybrids only use electricity when they are being driven at lower, in town speeds, they really don't offer much savings for people who do a lot of their driving at highway speeds.
Hybrids are pretty much a new technology and they offer a lot of promise to alleviate our reliance on gasoline. That will make it cheaper for people to get around and drive as well as decrease the impact on our environment.
If most of your driving is at slow speeds, in town, than getting a hybrid may be a great option for you and may be able to save you some money.
Of course, you won't save anything at highway speeds and you will sacrifice some space in your vehicle, and of course, you do need to consider the increased price tag. But, if those things aren't a problem for you, save yourself some money and get a new electric hybrid too.
But, until the technology advances to the point where we can use an electric hybrid car at highway speeds, and we can produce larger hybrid vehicles such as semi trucks and SUV's, we won't really be able to do a lot to decrease our dependence on gasoline. But we are headed in the right direction.
