Washington Post reporter seeks help on hybrids

Ok - so there are cars out there that have better emissions than some of the Hybrids. All the same, Hybrids' emissions are VERY low. Now lets talk gas milage. Hard to beat a hybrid on gas milage.

Face it: these cars are low emissions AND they get the best gas milage. And as Motown pointed out, those are two things that the legislature appears to value.

Fighting congestion is obviously important, but it seems like its the ONLY thing that some of the posters here care about. Don't you care about using less fuel? Or is that just a convenient by-product of slugging to get to work faster?

I don't know how you can commute, even twice a week, from where you live. I live in Woodbridge, and I considered this area too far from DC.

The hybrid is primarily used to access the HOV lanes. Most owners, as indicated, buy them just for that. Incentives to cause congestion. What a great system!

What I love about this whole thread is that people keep using the argument that hybrids are cleaner so the HOV exemption makes sense. What people fail to realize is that the honda civic hybrid that gets the "SULEV" rating in California is a different car than the civic hybrid sold here. They have different emission systems and they are being run on different gas. Same goes for the Insight. Go read all the fine print on the honda website(http://www.hondacars.com/images/banners/2004/civic_hybrid/civic_hybrid_factsheet.pdf). The Honda hybrids around here are actually dirty compared to most new small and mid-size cars. The Prius sold here and in California is the exact same car, but the SULEV rating only applies when using gas that is only available in California.
The Prius is the cleanest of the hybrids, but there are regular cars that have the exact same emissions as the Prius. There are a ton of cars that have better emmissions than the Honda hybrids that are sold here.
If you are going to keep using the SULEV rated/cleaner emissions argument, you should first take a look at the list of all cars that are just as clean as the hybrids on this site:

http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/ccvl/2004sulevpzevlist.htm

Some of these cars are available here, some of them aren't like the cleaner version of the Honda hybrids.
So for all the people driving hybrids by themselves in the HOV that think they are cleaning up our air, sorry you aren't. The person driving a Ford Focus with two other people is the one that is really making a difference.

Here's a nice quote from www.driveclean.ca.gov
"Gasoline vehicles meeting PZEV emissions standards sometimes have even lower emissions than hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles."
I suppose we should let all these cars have the HOV exemption also? It makes as much sense as the hybrid exemption.

quote:

---

Originally posted by motownldy199

Lisa, I was actually defending you and couldn't edit my comment, it should have read "snickering at LisaDeanna."

I'm on the same side as you are.

---

Gothcha. Thanks. [8D]