Obsoletely, Plug Me In

I don’t own a hybrid. I own a Jeep. It’s got a four-banger engine in it, but it still guzzles its share of gas – that’s for sure. When I bought my Jeep six years ago, I didn’t even consider a hybrid because they were brand new to the market and expensive. If I were today to buy a new car, would I buy a hybrid? Good question. I hear words like “carbon emissions” and “greenhouse gasses” and the main refrain in my brain are colors of smoggy gray for our future generations. From previous study, I know a hybrid would emit fewer emissions than an all-gas-powered vehicle, and my tender wallet takes a painful beating whenever I hit the pump, so why wouldn’t I buy a hybrid? Why doesn’t everyone?

For most folks, it’s a matter of trust and knowledge. It is hard for a consumer to have faith in a new product that has not yet attained enough popularity to reach a critical mass of production or even tip the scales of the auto network. The thought of getting stuck as a sucker with an obsolete product, like some poor BETA VCR buyer, is a total drag. And since so few other people are doing it, folks rationalize to not take time out of their selective daily grind to even bother learning about hybrids or consider buying one. They take what feels like a safe, familiar path towards a gray, smoggy, gas-burning future. So, what would turn things around? How many more hybrid buyers would it take to tip the network scales toward hybrid domination? Could one more car-buyer, empowered through education to overcome fears of obsolescence and have trust in the benefits of buying a hybrid, make the difference?

Though gaining in popularity, hybrids are a far cry from a dominant market fixture today. Only a small proportion, about 3.55%, of new car purchases last month were hybrids.1 So why are there so few hybrid sales? Studies show that people who own hybrid cars are genuinely happy with them and will purchase another hybrid car at their next buying opportunity, so it’s not consumer dissatisfaction.2 As time passes and hybrids are not quite so new and rare anymore, their prices are stabilizing and becoming more reasonable. Considering the recent and dramatic skyrocket in gasoline prices our economy has experienced as of late, it goes to follow that a consumer would be attracted to buying a hybrid for economic reasons, too. So why, then, don’t more people buy hybrids rather than all-gas cars?

Confusion and unfamiliarity are huge barriers for potential car buyers, who have never purchased a hybrid vehicle, to overcome. When a consumer goes into a dealership to purchase a new car, chances are they have owned gasoline-only cars in the past. They know that they need only pull into any gas station when the gas gauge gets low, fill up their tank, and be on their way. If something breaks, they know they can buy parts and find someone to fix it, and they feel confident that the use of gasoline-only cars will continue, thus perpetuating the value in their vehicle. When folks first start hearing about using electricity or a new kind of battery or how to find a solar-powered electric vehicle charging station in the city – they can become easily overwhelmed. The idea of getting stuck with today’s equivalent of BETA VCRs or 8-track cassette tapes that so quickly found themselves obsolete in decades past creates a worry most risk-averse buyers tend to avoid – and who’s not risk-averse in our post-recession economy? I think the best way for a person to become open-minded to purchasing an alternative vehicle is to study and learn all he can about what has worked and what has not, and where the future of cars is headed. Indeed, over the last few months I have learned quite a bit about how hybrids work, how they are cheaper than I initially thought, how reliable they are, and how truly good for the environment they can be. Hybrids aren’t so scary to me anymore, and my mind is much more open to the idea of owning a hybrid car. However, all this knowledge has also led me to think beyond the fear of buying a hybrid and more about the reasons why people buy them.

Many people purchase hybrids to help protect the environment, as we know that hybrids produce significantly less emissions than gas-only cars … but electric cars go even one step further. According to the Argonne National Laboratory, “EVs [electric vehicles] substantially reduce all of the emissions that cause adverse health conditions in urban settings, where those emissions are often concentrated and do the most harm to human health.”3 A new electric car made by Nissan, the Leaf, doesn’t produce any bad emissions for our environment, at all.4 Even charging stations are getting better for the environment. One company, Sunlight Solar Energy, has several solar-powered charging stations around Oregon.5 Perhaps education for the public about the benefits of alternative vehicles, such as we are doing in our blogs, will help people to change their minds about alternative vehicles.

With so many advancements being made at such a very rapid pace, it’s hard to feel confident buying anything nowadays – especially anything with a new technology. Just a few days ago, here in Portland, Oregon, our governor unveiled, “what is being heralded as the nation’s first public quick-charge station for electric vehicles.”4 It will take about a half an hour to charge an electric car to go about 100 miles and plans are being created to have over 1,000 more of these stations along Oregon Interstate Five.4 For those consumers who like simplicity – being able to just pull up to the pump and fill up – Portland is even going so far as to use hose-devices to make charging the batteries of electric cars similar to filling up at the gas station.6 This creation is so advanced that cars that will use this device, like the Nissan Leaf, will not even be released until the end of this year.4 Just like BETA to VHS, cassette to CD, and DVD to blu-ray, technology is always improving. The wait for technology to free our society from dangerous, damaging emissions and dependence on foreign oil is over – that technology is here, now. It is an easy stretch to predict that, at some point in the future, gasoline prices will grow out of reasonable range and gasoline-only cars will become highly regulated by an environmentally-conscious government. When comparing this reality with an alternative fuel source as abundant as the sun, whether sooner or later, it is easy to see where the future of our vehicular travel is headed in the long run. As hybrid and electric vehicle popularity continues to grow exponentially, the point of critical mass – where the dominant fuel swings from gas to hybrid/electric – gas-only cars will become a thing of the past faster than you can say “fill ‘er up, Johnny.”

We live in an amazing time where we all have the opportunity to minimize our impacts on the world around us and sustain the beautiful world we know for our future. The missing ingredient is motivation . . . Yours, and mine. Jumping on the technology train now, regardless of which car you land on, is the safest bet; however, since my budget won’t allow it for a couple more years anyway, perhaps I will wait and purchase the new hydro-car that runs on water. It could happen!

1 “July 2010 Dashboard: Sales of Popular Hybrids Hold Firm.” Hybrid Cars. August 10 2010. August 10 2010. http://www.hybridcars.com/hybrid-clean-diesel-sales-dashboard/july-2010.html
2 “Profile of Hybrid Drivers.” Hybrid Cars. March 31 2006. August 7 2010. http://www.hybridcars.com/hybrid-drivers/profile-of-hybrid-drivers.html
3 “Electric Vehicles: The Portland Way.” August 07 2010. http://media.oregonlive.com/commuting/other/1046.pdf
4 Rose, Joseph. “Downtown Portland electric-car charging station is 'quick,' even if it's not very 'public'.” The Oregonian. August 05 2010. August 07 2010. http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting/2010/08/downtown_portland_electric-car.html
5 Associated Press. “Bend powers up first e-car charging station.” Katu. June 14 2010. August 7 2010. http://www.katu.com/news/business/96300494.html
6 Associated Press. “Governor looks to power up plans for electric cars in Oregon.” Katu. August 05 2010. August 07 2010. http://www.katu.com/news/business/100069289.html