How expensive does Gas have to get before you decide to get a Hybrid?

Some political types are saying that a barrel of oil may reach $180-$200 eventually. That could equal perhaps $5-$7 gallon, or even more. At which point do we say enough is enough? America will never completely give up the Super-Huge SUV cravings, but does $400 dollars a week sound like a reasonable future gas budget?

Well, now major car companies are starting to come out with good Hybrid designs that might help satisfy the American urge for the SUV, but be very easy on the gas budget, especially in the coming years.

Here is one example: www.lexus.com...

Don't be surprised to see Ford, GM, Nissan, Etc... start releasing them as well in the not too distant future. So what would it take for you to switch? Because it may become a reality soon.

When we looked at a Civic Hybrid, we factored gas at $3.00 a gallon. Given our driving habits, it was going to take us 10 years to make up the difference (perhaps beyond the life of the battery pack). I would say about 4-5 dollars an hour would make a car like the Civic more practical for us.

Hybrids my ass.!! From eveything i've seen, they barely get better milage than traditional cumbustion engines..
How about getting all of these near useless auto manufacturers to produce alternate fuel engines. Ones than can run off of Bio-diesel, or Ethynol... Let 'em subsidise farmers for that instead of poisioning us with High fructose corn syrup.

Originally posted by thethrall_nb
Hybrids my ass.!! From eveything i've seen, they barely get better milage than traditional cumbustion engines..
How about getting all of these near useless auto manufacturers to produce alternate fuel engines. Ones than can run off of Bio-diesel, or Ethynol... Let 'em subsidise farmers for that instead of poisioning us with High fructose corn syrup.

The link I provided is only one example of a car company taking their existing, highly selling suv, and re-powering it as a hybrid. It is said that this RX will be able to get about 600 miles+ on one tank of gas. And have better power and performance than the tradtional gas engine they have now.

There are also new cars soon to come out on the market that are run by magnets and air, though I remain extremely skeptical.

[edit on 12-8-2004 by coronamoz]

I would buy one, if they all didnt look like crap. Something has to give a, new power source or something.

I can't afford a new car....but I live a mile from work and shopping. If it got too bad, I'd have to bus it somewhere if I had to go somewhere too far from my area of the city...

I doubt the hybrid is a viable solution for many many people in America. Look at the cars on the road as you drive to work. How many are more than 5 years old? I would guess most of those people cannot afford a new car and will be forced to pay the higher gas prices. Also with Bankruptcy at an all time high many don't have the credit for a new car, especially one that barely seats 2 adults comfortably.

We will pay, we don't have much choice considering our options today.

I'm much more interested in Ethanol or bio-diesel than the hybrids. $7 a gallon for gas will have alot of us demanding alternate fuels. I believe alcohol currently runs about $4 and bio-diesels about $5 to produce. Those figures would come down if it was mass produced. The prices would still be more appealing than $7 gasoline.

I know I'm not the norm but I'm still driving an '87 and plan on keeping it for a while longer. I would convert it to alcohol in a heartbeat.

I ride a Harley the 2-3 miles to work and dont go out much my wife has a pontiac 6000 that we used to go to the store so it will haver to get pretty high to bother us

I think it would be more economical for the average person to BUILD their own hybrid rather than buy one. I am somewhat surprised that you do not see conversion shops popping up where you can take your current small car or truck and have it converted to hybrid operation. They would take your current engine out and sell it off to help finance the conversion. Back in the seventies MOTHER EARTH NEWS did a series of articles where they converted an OPEL car to hybrid operation.

BIODIESEL is another alternative that was covered in MOTHER EARTH NEWS. I was shocked to find out you could run a DIESEL engine on corn oil!!!

Now if you go for the BIODIESEL powered hovercraft you will not have to buy tires either.

Originally posted by groingrinder
BIODIESEL is another alternative that was covered in MOTHER EARTH NEWS. I was shocked

to find out you could run a DIESEL engine on corn oil!!!

We have another word for that.........Moonshine

Hell us hillbillies will be the new Oil tycoons...YEEEEEHAAAAA

coronamoz - do you have a link for the magnet powered cars.
I certianly don't doubt that I think magnets will be one off the best power sources ever found once we can come up with the right design on how to use there power and energy into electricity.
Magnets do alot from spinning your hard drives at 7,200 rpm. To moving a train hundreds of mph. called magLev. For Magnetic Levitation

Hybrids will be shortlived, I give it 10 more years then we should see alot more Hydrogen powered fuel cells. Then we can stop spending so much on oil. gas will be around for along time but we need other means to power our cars. With China's huge population and there recent turn around to try and look america like, then with that there 1.2 billion population will start driving more and more.

One thing no one has brought up, is the law of supply and demand pertaining to gasoline. If tomorrow everyone on the planet had a hybrid getting a theoretical twice the mileage, gas prices would double to make up for that. The end result is no net improvement for our pocket books on how much we spend on fuel. Just my thoughts............

Originally posted by ben91069
One thing no one has brought up, is the law of supply and demand pertaining to gasoline. If tomorrow everyone on the planet had a hybrid getting a theoretical twice the mileage, gas prices would double to make up for that. The end result is no net improvement for our pocket books on how much we spend on fuel. Just my thoughts............

Actually the law of supply and demand would say that gas would become cheaper as the demand for it falls.

- Was

...here we go, Demand Vs. Quantity Demanded. Back to school we go...

[edit on 8/14/2004 by bzap]

Originally posted by Amuk

Originally posted by groingrinder
BIODIESEL is another alternative that was covered in MOTHER EARTH NEWS. I was shocked

to find out you could run a DIESEL engine on corn oil!!!

We have another word for that.........Moonshine

Hell us hillbillies will be the new Oil tycoons...YEEEEEHAAAAA

CORN OIL is not the same thing as MOONSHINE, but the good folks at MOTHER EARTH NEWS had that covered as well. Showed how to make a complete alcohol still from start to finish. Also showed how to convert the carburetor for alcohol operation. Damn magazine got sold in the 80's or 90's and in it's current incarnation is not worth spit.

you could run an engine on biomass oil, but it does significantly reduce the life of the engine.. plus your car will smell like a taco bell!

Originally posted by groingrinder
CORN OIL is not the same thing as MOONSHINE, but the good folks at MOTHER EARTH NEWS had that covered as well. Showed how to make a complete alcohol still from start to finish. Also showed how to convert the carburetor for alcohol operation. Damn magazine got sold in the 80's or 90's and in it's current incarnation is not worth spit.

I figured you meant corn-alcohol or as we call it here corn squeezins I have never heard of corn oil, besides the cooking kind, what is the difference?

I used to like Mother Earth news too but grandpa taught my dad (and me too) how to make it, and you can run a car on it


[edit on 12-8-2004 by Amuk]

What the next generation hybrids are doing is taking cars that consumers already really like, and giving them 60 mpg+. Not to mention in most cases even better performance. I know the majority of people today do not buy new cars, but expect to see the entire price range of car companies from Mercedes to Hyudai start selling them in the next 4 years.

[edit on 8/14/2004 by bzap]