Term Paper on "Hybrid vs. Gas Car"

Term Paper 4 pages (1041 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Hybrid Car

The Pros and Cons of a Hybrid Car

The intent of this paper is to evaluate the pros and cons of having a hybrid car vs. one that is powered by gasoline. With the price of gasoline globally escalating upward, the debate between hybrid and gasoline-powered is also becoming more prevalent, especially in the United States where Toyota Motor Company, Ford, GM, Chrysler, and other manufacturers are aggressively launching hybrid vehicles at an unprecedented pace.

With all the efforts of auto manufacturers to deliver hybrid vehicles, the questions remain if these automobiles are worth the higher price when lower-priced and smaller gasoline-powered vehicles get just as good of mileage and are thousands of dollars less. Hybrid vehicles do deliver efficiency in larger metro areas where state and local governments allow drivers traveling alone to use the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes. The State of California has recently decided to retract the offer to hybrid vehicle owners to use HOV lanes due to the slowness of hybrid vehicle sales in the state and the cost of administering the program. With this benefit no longer available and the wide variety of low cost and high mileage cars in California, hybrid cars are being increasingly seen as a social statement of environmental awareness over the economics of operating them. Toyota's positioning of the Prius as a socially responsible vehicle is working, while Ford positioning hybrids for their fuel saving capability is failing. Positioning is the marketing strategies that manufacturers use to communicate the value of their automobiles. As Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Cheryl Crow, Prince Charles of England, Will Farrell, Harrison Ford and many other celebrities drive the Prius, the car has become a symbol of the young and environmental conscious. These celebrities are making a statement about their concern for the environment, and each is definitely not concerned about the economics of hybrid saving on gasoline. So what is happening is a paradox. Originally designed to save on fuel costs, the environmentally friendly features of the car has become a social statement.

Demographics from Strategic Vision (2006) bear out the strength of branding on hybrid auto sales, with 34.13% having a post-graduate degree, the majority being professors or instructors (21.97%), and the majority over 50 (58%) and three quarters of them owning a Toyota (75.73%) followed by Lexus with the 440h (9.92% with Honda being 7.64% of total sales. Please see the references for an Excel spreadsheet with additional information.

Pros of Owning Hybrid Cars

With all the hype surrounding hybrid cars it's a good idea to list the pros and cons of the technology. The pros include the following, and come from Greenhybrid.com (2006):

By design, hybrid vehicles run cleaner. While manufacturers claim up to 80% cleaner emissions and have lower emissions.

There are on average eight different warranties on hybrid cars mainly due to the many systems that comprise the entire car.

There are generous federal tax credits for buying a hybrid vehicle, as the Federal Government considers them a "Clean Fuel Property."

Higher gas mileage across the nation can drop the price of gasoline over the long-term.… READ MORE

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