Hybrid or hype. I was reading in the news on yahoo today and there was an article about hybrid cars. Go and have a look:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20060411/bs_bw/bw20060407879124
If you want to get into the psyche of Americans, click on the "discuss" link at the bottom of the page. Prepare to be disturbed if you do - more on that another day.
I have to agree with the people who are not that impressed with hybrids. It depends some on what kind of driving you do. For people on a small island with lots of traffic, they make some sense. If you do lots of city driving or are in stop and go traffic alot, good hybrids are cool. But if you live somewhere with an Autobahn or freeways and like taking road trips, get something else. My Dad had a Prius. It really only did in the 45 MPG range. Not that special. For those who don't like compacts, the Prius is a decent compromise between size and fuel economy. What was special about it was that it got in the 40s pretty much no matter what he did, stop and go, sitting in traffic, driving on the highway. That is something most other cars don't do. But... for absolute best economy figures go to the web like I did... Most of these are not even particularly expensive. Now notice something, where are the American cars? They can't compete in this part of the market. If gas prices keep going up the American automobile industry will get creamed again just like they did 25-30 years ago.
MGP Highway MPG urban
70.6 43.5 Suzuki Alto
68.9 47.1 Daihatsu Charade
78.5 62.8 Smart Diesel
83.1 53.3 Citroen C1 Diesel
66.0 60.0 Honda Insight
60.1 41.5 Honda Jazz
So, if you want to have an impact on the world, design a really economical car that can make a redneck happy. If you haven't lived in the US much and need some hints on the type of people you are trying to reach, go to yahoo, read the article, and then read some of the discussion. I didn't say it would be easy but if you could increase the market share of this kind of car by 20-30% in the US market it would have an enormous impact. Huge.
Here's the challenge folks, what combination of design features and performance changes would it take to make you buy a really economical car. As you can see 40 MPG is nothing special but the Smart is a funny looking car. It doesn't do a rifle rack justice.
