Hybrid-hatin'

I'm not a fan of hybrids in any flavor - especially in electronics and automotives. The best reason I can give for my dislike: you're taking two pieces of technology that were designed separately with different components and were then mated together with a power supply and control circuitry (usually built for only one of them) b/c somebody saw sales dollars with the "convenience over quality" crowd. However, consumers have shown they're willing to pay more for this - in electronics, it's multi-functionality (cell phones that surf the web, check email, play music, take pictures, etc.)

Automotives, though, the convenience is more green (or so we're told). Better gas mileage, better for the environment... or not?

CNW Marketing Research, Inc. will be releasing a detailed study later this month that shows that the overall energy consumption, which includes building, transporting, driving and disposing of hybrid vehicles is actually more than the overall energy consumption of their non-hybrid counterparts. These results are quite significant.

A Honda Civic has a dust-to-dust energy cost of $2.42/mile, compared to the Honda Civic Hybrid which has a dust-to-dust energy cost of $3.238/mile. This means that although the hybrid version has better fuel efficiency, over the entire life of the car, the Honda Civic will be using less energy than the Honda Civic Hybrid.

Most folks simply buy a hybrid vehicle thinking they're helping the environment - but in reality, they are making things worse. Batteries, in their current form and without a rather remarkable breakthrough, are not a solution to powering cars. Chemical composition, disposal, weight, size, expense... pick your poison - bottom line is they're just not a viable enough option (yet).