Shannon

Welcome to Wild Texas, Rabbi!

I love our Ford Escape Hybrid. You can read more in these various entries on my personal website. You can start with Why I Bought a Hybrid.

PROS:

• Terrific gas mileage, for an SUV! Want even better gas mileage? Look at the Honda Civic Hybrid, the Toyota Prius or the 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid.
• There are a lot of hybrid vehicles available, or soon-to-be (2007-2008) available. This includes trucks, larger SUVs and even "power hybrids" used not to increase fuel economy so much as to increase horsepower (see Lexus).
• A new, less stressful way of driving which actually anyone can do in any vehicle and results in miles per gallon savings.
• My hybrid has terrific acceleration, in case you're wondering. For some reason, even I was ready to deal with slightly less power. Not in the least. The hybrid "sips gas" when needed, and if you need to floor the accelerator, you do so and the vehicle responds with the power one would expect from a V6 Ford Escape. I know, because we drove a V6 non-hybrid Escape for 10 days in D.C. last year on vacation.
• Federal Income Tax Credit applies for all new hybrid purchases, until each manufacturer sells 60,000 hybrid vehicles. Toyota will hit that perhaps as early as this September. Tax credit for our 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid, purchased March 6, 2006, is $2,600.
• Terrific manufacturer's warranty, just like you expect from any other vehicle. (8 year, 100,000 mile warranty on all hybrid components from Ford.) And the rest of my vehicle is nearly identical to the non-hybrid Ford Escape (see photos), so in the event of an accident or whatnot, repair parts are in routine supply. All parts can be ordered, of course. [Any problems with my vehicle, now over 1 month old and with over 1,900 miles? None, zip, nada. Love our Ford, love that it's a hybrid and love having the extra space and height of an SUV after 14 years in a small sedan.
• 10% off insurance for hybrid owners -- if you live in a state served by Traveler's Insurance. (Texas is not, yet, such a state.) However, the insurance premiums on our new 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid are nearly identical to those on our 1992 Toyota Corolla -- very low. Varies of course by your age, driving record, vehicle, insurance coverage limits/deductible, and state.
  
  CON(S):
• You will pay a higher purchase price to buy a hybrid, just like other options in a vehicle that also increase price (4x4 vs. front-wheel drive; automatic vs. manual, V8 vs. V6, etc.) For that price, though, hybrid buyers get superb gas mileage/better fuel economy; a fun, high tech vehicle that's fun to drive (there's something embarassingly fun about knowing when parked in bumper to bumper traffic that my hybrid is not polluting or burning any gas, unless it temporarily turns on the gasoline engine to recharge the hybrid's battery.); there are of course other reasons, but these are the simplest.
• Aggressive drivers abound, and some seem to get especially rude when they come upon a hybrid (even if the hybrid is in the slow lane, travelling at or even slightly above the posted speed limit). So, I'm back to blending in, having removed a simple, fun window sticker I'd been sporting since day 1 that seemed to invite jerks.
• If you aren't in the market for a new car yet, hybrids are still relatively new enough (first available in the U.S. in 2000 -- the Honda Insight) that they're harder to find as used vehicles, and you don't get the Federal Income Tax Credit if you buy one used. So they're not an option for people who aren't ready to buy a new car anytime soon. This will change are more hybrid owners trade in their vehicles for new models.

There's more, but I think I cover most everything I've encountered or thought about thus far in my various GeekHabitat linked postings above.

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- Shannon Moore
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