Hybrid Vigor?
Although hybrid gas-electric vehicles -- including the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight and a version of the Civic -- are certainly becoming more common, they're still a rarity on the roads: in 2003 there were less than 44,000 registered in the entire U.S.
By contrast, there are about 230,000,000 non-hybrid cars and trucks in the US.
Virginia and Maryland have the most hybrid cars per capita -- with 4.5 and 3.4 hybrid vehicles for every 10,000 residents. Washington and Oregon rank fourth and fifth, with about 3 hybrids per 10,000 people.
Hybrids should see a boost in coming years, with a new Ford hybrid SUV that gets 40 miles per gallon in city driving. But an even more effective fuel-saver is to live in a neighborhood where you don't need to drive much. That's one reason that residents of denser European cities use about a 40 percent of the highway fuels that Northwesterners do -- it's not just that they're driving better cars, but also that they've arranged their cities so that the car is a convenience, not an absolute necessity. We could aim to do the same.
Update: this likely explains why Virginia ranks highly in hybrid ownership -- if you drive a hybrid, you get to drive solo in the HOV lanes.
Comments
Add a Comment