Compared to flying it's a bargain because jet fuel prices have raised airline tickets, so driving is still the less costly option (especially since people will drive to a closer destination than they would have flown to)

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You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Hybrids are the way of the future and the technology will improve dramatically over the next several years. The auto industry will respond to consumer demand. So far it's been primarily the Japan owned companies that have invested in this tech. and the big 3 US Auto industry has kept making bigger SUV's and Pick-ups. Now with the gas prices getting higher, consumers are starting to look at hybrids and smaller cars, so now the big 3 are getting caught with their pants down and not able to respond quick enough to the demand of the consumers and the environmentalist.

The CAFE standards being imposed by congress will certainly cripple the big 3 even more, but in large that's their own fault for not investing in the proper R&D years ago. While Toyota has been leading the way going to their engineers, US companies have lead by going to their Lobby.

Now that all the companies are finally starting to look to thier engineers for better MPG, I think Eric is right that we will see huge improvements in hybrid technology (or something else). Right now we are in the second/third generation of hybrid tech, within a decade we will see 400hp cars with 50 mpg and 200 hp cars with 100+mpg and will increase greatly from there.

Bottom line is that we don't/won't hav a choice to cut back on our consumption of of oil/gas and more of us (even with x5's need to think a bit greener). It's not about saving the Earth, because the Earth will be here regardless what we do. It's about saving ourselves. If the greenhouse effect is true, it's our great-grandkids that we put at the most risk.

The first generation Toyota Prius was released in 2000. The current generation Prius which was introduced in 2004 is way improved. Here is a comparison:

Curb Weight
2000: 2765 lbs
2004: 2932 lbs

Front Leg Room/Read Leg Room
2000: 41.2 in / 35.4 in
2004: 41.9 in / 38.6 in

Luggage Capacity
2000: 11.8 cu. ft.
2004: 14.4 cu. ft

Horsepower
2000: 70 hp
2004: 110 hp

Fuel Mileage (city/highway)
2000: 52 mpg / 45 mpg
2004: 60 mpg / 51 mpg

So in 4 years, the car increased dramatically in size and weight, puts out 60% more horsepower, yet also gets 15% better gas mileage. There is no reason to believe that similar gains cannot be had every 4 years. There are already rumors that the next generation Prius will get over 100 mpg.

And as for speed, the Accord Hybrid puts out 253 hp and still gets 35 mpg. So yes, it is a trade-off. But I don't doubt that with R&D, in a short time they will achieve 50 mpg and 250 hp in the same engine. And in my lifetime, they will achieve 100 or 200 mpg and still be able to put out that same power.

The reality of this is that hybrid technology is nothing new. They could have done this 30 years ago if they wanted to. The technology was around then too. But the oil companies want you think that without oil you cannot have a decent automobile. If there was no oil on the planet earth, do you really think we would not have any modern forms of transportation today?

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

The one and ONLY hybrid I would ever, ever consider buying would be a Honda Accord Hybrid.

But then in real life, I'd rather buy a diesel for commuting purposes. Then I wouldn't have to worry about the environmental costs of manufacturing and disposing of hybrid batteries. Plus, I loved driving that 120d on PS2's GT4 around the Nurburgring.

Battery technology in the late late 70 was no place close to today. No hybrid like the Prius was going to be made in 1977. They did not even have may of the materials they use in a modern hybrid back then.

Love that torque. Late to the discussion but as intelligent as it is i still wonder what the answer is to the green question. Or is green just another hyperbole headed for the endless vacumn till the real deal comes along.

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"What you hear in a great jazz band is the sound of democracy. “The jazz band works best when participation is shaped by intelligent communication.”
Harmony happens whenever different parts get to form a whole by means of congruity, concord, symetry, consistency, conformity, correspondence, agreement, accord, unity, consonance…….

The technology was there, they just didn't develop it for consumer uses. The same advanced battery technology was used in NASA projects back in the 1960s. Do you think they could have gone to the moon without very good battery technology?

I know some genius is now going to say "yeah, but it was way too expensive back then". Well, like anything else, it becomes cheaper when it is developed for consumer uses. It just so happens that they did not start developing rechargable batteries for consumer uses until much later on. But now that they are spending money on R&D, they are making huge advances in this area. My cell current cell phone has a standby time of 400 hours. In 1997, my cell phone had a standby time of around 12 hours.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

maybe if we (our "government") weren't too busy (spending all our and half the world's money) (trying to) stealing oil (see. karma) from the middle east we ("government") could figure out (build infrastructure) a viable alternative (hydrogen)

Too bad we (government) are too fookin' broke (have too many friends at Big Oil)

ugh. we (our government) suck(s)
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