I personally don't know what to think about hybrids - other than the one perk of saving a few bucks in gas mileage - and sadly I believe that is most people's view of them - that I have talked to anyway.
Life expectancy of the hybrids will be a key issue of whether or not they are more ecologically sound for the enviroment and economically sound for the pockets of the people. Economics is the one thing that keeps me from buying something that gets 40+ miles to the gallon - I am just the average income with no tax-breaks class of people - I don't think it would be beneficial to me (maybe to the environment, but I would have to live out of my car) to pay more money for a car that is going to save me a gallon or two of gas a month compared to just paying for my good ol' '97 toyota camry that already gets fairly decent mileage anyway (30mpg). Plus, now that gas is superfluously expensive, I am driving half as much because I can only live on the budgeted amount of gas for a week anyway.
I just feel that the average American is going to weigh the economical side over the ecological one - presidence has proven this many times! - and that is what the *bleep bleeps* of the petroleum industry bank on, which perpetuate the use of fossil fuels. I guess my real opinion of hybrids is this; if you buy a hybrid, you are still guzzling gas - just not as much! They are still costly to the environment to build and opperate. So, yeah, maybe they don't emmit
AS much pollution, but they still pollute - which is still contributing to the problem at hand. I'll tell you what I've been looking in to -
mopeds - all I can say is 120MPG is pretty sweet!