Hybrids not delivering as promised...

One of the current administration's many items of progress on environmental issues has been an Executive Order to the EPA to revise their methods of testing fuel economy. The new methods concentrate on real-world driving, not optimal driving conditions as in the prior methods. Aggressive driving, use of air conditioning, heavily laden trunks, low tire pressure, dirty air filters, etc., will lower fuel economy dramatically. This decrease, it turns out, is even more pronounced in hybrids.

This brings us to John True who is suing Honda over the Civic Hybrid's advertised mileage. Mr. True bought a Civic Hybrid, paying more than $7,000 extra, in order to save gas. The advertised mileage, based on the flawed EPA estimates, was 49 city, 51 highway. His experience - 32 miles per gallon. Now, my stick-shift, 4 cylinder 1999 Saturn SC-1 gets around 30-31 mpg as I drive rather conservatively and rarely use my air conditioning.

Perhaps Mr. True's experiences aren't quite valid. Perhaps the Civic Hybrid will test out at about 40 mpg, splitting the difference between it's advertised 50 and its empirical 30. And, this is already a small car. What does this mean about the bigger hybrids? What does this say about the Senate's proposed CAFE increases? It says that 35 mpg is a lot further off than we expect and hybrids, even at about $7,000 a car, are not likely to bridge that gap.