Non-story of the day

An International Herald Tribune story from the U.K. reports on what's obvious to anyone who's paying attention: the vast majority of hybrids are not economically feasible. A couple of errors in the story, though:

1) The Saturn Aura Greenline only costs about $1,500 more than the standard Saturn Aura and receives a $1,500 tax credit, making it an economically feasible vehicle and a full-sized sedan which has a 224 hp, V6 engine that gets 30 mpg.

2) The tax credit reported in the article ranges from $2,200 to $3,000. In actuality, it may be only a few hundred dollars for some vehicles.

Hybrids better for the environment than for your wallet
The International Herald Tribune

NEW YORK: All things being equal, who wouldn't prefer to own a hybrid vehicle?

The cars are cleaner and more efficient than their "fuel only" peers - not to mention that they are the global "it" car these days: California's green governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, drives one, of course, as does Prince Charles of Britain. So do Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, and Jack Nicholson.

But their may be another reason why so many of the rich and famous are among the small but growing club of hybrid owners: hybrids cost more - sometimes a lot more - than regular cars.

The price of adopting hybrid technology came home to roost when I recently priced weekly rental cars from Hertz for a series of trips and a vacation.