The Road As A Canvas

2009 is now upon us and I left wondering if there is going to be anything different this year in the automotive world.

It seems that over the last few years everything seems to have stalled. They introduced a whole bunch of new technologies as few years back but nothing seems to have come from that.
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Hybrid cars are all the rage these days, and every manufacturer is racing to get their cars on the road. But my question is are hybrids really the answer and are they even worth it?

Please do not get me wrong, I am pro-environment and I do not want black smoke out of my tail pipe but the question here is the economics of hybrids.

Let us take a popular car in Canada, the Honda Civic. The regular DX trim model has an MSRP of $16,990 CDN. The fully loaded EX-L has a sticker of $23,480. All models have the same engine and get 40 MPG (5.88 L/100km) on the highway and 30 MPG (7.84 L/100km) on the city streets.

The hybrid model starts at $26,250 and gets 45 MPG (5.23 L/100km) on the highway and 40 MPG (5.88 L/100km) in the city.

There is a difference there and every ton of pollution not created by cars is a good thing really.

The question comes from the $2,770 – $9,260 premium for the hybrid.

The mileage on the highway is the same as most hybrids rely completely on their gas motors on the highway. Let us crunch the numbers for the City driving. The hybrid driver will save 1.96 litres of fuel for every 100 KM they drive. At current prices, $1.000 / L in Toronto today, that is a savings of $1.96 every 100 KM.

At that rate it will take 141,326 – 472,448 KM to make the cost break even (depending on options). That is quite a long way to go really. The civic is a good car, it should last that long but how many original owners keep their cars that long? How about the maintenance costs to maintain two separate engines?

At this point hybrids are good for people will to pay for them but there has to be better options available.

*All figures courtesy www.honda.ca, based on the 2008 model year, all trademarks owned by their respective owners.