Car manufacturers tout their efficiency. Consumer advocates dispute claims of 60-plus miles per gallon gas efficiency. Amidst the controversy, environmentalists still claim, in the absence of anything better – that hybrid vehicles are still better for the environment than their traditional gas-guzzling counterparts.

Hybrids, known for the way they combine both gas and electric power to offer a cleaner ride, have come under fire in recent months for their inability to reach gas mileage milestones set by the manufacturers. Critics say that most fail to live up to claims of getting more than 60 miles to a single gallon of gas. Advocates argue that recent studies confirm the same is true for efficiency ratings set on traditional engines, still making hybrids the better deal environmentally.

Touted as the gas-saver of the future when introduced in 1999, hybrids are known to use a fraction of the gas due to their ability to “share the burden”, with their electric motors. Full hybrid vehicles allow the electric motor to work independently of the more traditional internal combustion engine, while driving at low speeds. This in turn saves gas, and stops harmful emissions from entering the atmosphere. During an idle stop, a full hybrid actually shuts itself off, letting the electric motor take over to eliminate unnecessary idling and emissions.

Consumers should be aware, however, that the mild hybrids focus remains on traditional gas consumption, with the electric motor only assisting the gas engine at high speeds when more power is needed, thus making the mild hybrid much less environmental friendly than its full hybrid counterpart.

Great for in town drivers, the full hybrid allows slow speeding drivers to virtually use only the electric motor, thus saving even more gas, and eliminating harmful emissions into the environment.

Despite any controversy surrounding today’s hybrid vehicles, consumers seem eager to do what they can to decrease the harmful effects of emissions on the environment and save a few bucks at the pumps. Production of hybrid vehicles has tripled in the last four years, with production expected to double in 2007. The Yano Research Institute Ltd. estimates that by 2015, nearly 5.37 million hybrid vehicles will be on the global road, compared to less than one million last year.

Manufacturers have jumped on the bandwagon, with Honda, Toyota, Ford, Lexus and Chevrolet, all offering their own hybrid varieties. Newer models sport higher-powered and faster models, even making hybrid SUV’s and trucks available to the consumer. Of course, the heavier the vehicle, and the faster it rides, the more gas it is bound to use, despite the use and size of the internal electric motor.

Still, hybrids remain the most gas efficient and environmental friendly vehicles in mass production today.

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Through an odd set of coincidences my dream car was eligible for huge tax rebates so I “had” to take a look. The Tesla Roadster is an all electric car produced by a small company in California called Tesla Motors. It is one of the first production scale electric cars available in the U.S. It is expensive by everyone’s standards but so is a Porsche, or any other high-end sports car.

Given that I own two hybrids you would think that I feel pretty good about my carbon footprint concerning transportation but it would be better to have one less car, take the bus more or better yet own some sort of electric car that doesn’t burn gas at all.

I guess nobody ever thought electric cars would materialize or be considered luxury, so when the State of Colorado wrote the rebate tax code they probably didn’t expect people making claims for an electric car in the amount of a $42,000 credit!  Add $7,500 from the federal government and you could see why I was more than a little interested.

When I went to test-drive the car, the weather was lousy due to the fact that a massive snow storm was on its way, so time was short. With the sales rep in the passenger’s seat I drove the car around the block. It took a while to get used to how the car handled given that it is a true sports car. After a couple of minutes my sales rep copilot suggested that I let the car drop down to 20 MPH and then punch it. It didn’t take much convincing because no matter who you are that is the very first thought that runs through your head when you sit in a car like this. The moment before I took her up on the suggestion I made a pact with myself to play it cool and not make a big fuss when the car accelerated. At least that was the plan; which lasted for less than 2 seconds. I didn’t even get the pedal to the floor when I blurted out “Holy *$% that’s fast!” Now I have been in some fast cars before but this was almost unnatural. There was zero delay between pushing down the petal and being thrown forward at unbelievable speeds. You have to do some quick planning with a car this fast because you are on top of the car in front of you in no time at all.

In the end, even with the huge incentives, I decided that saving for my kids’ college was more important, but I did walk away knowing that the future of electric cars looks bright. If you consider acceleration, top speed, travel distance, cost, MPH and fun as some of the major categories people consider when deciding to purchase a car, this one hits 50% of the categories out of the park. Cost and traveling distance are big barriers. The car can go at least a couple hundred of miles on a charge. Its top speed is only 125 MGH, but I am guessing that 125 MPH is fast enough for most people. Remember that nobody thought people would sacrifice music quality for portability yet digital music players have dominated retail over the last couple of years, so a couple of inconveniences will likely be overlooked by those purchasing this car.

Being green with an electric sports car like this one makes you feel kind of guilty because it is so easy. Maybe if more products were as good as this car, making changes to more environmentally-friendly products would be easy.

About John Basso
John Basso is the CIO for Amadeus Consulting, a custom software development company dedicated to creating intelligent technology solutions as well as the Executive Director of BLAST! (Business Leaders in Action for Sustainability Today). As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Amadeus Consulting excels in mobility and data management, content management, e-commerce, social networking, data collection and management, browser plug-ins, and iPhone application development.
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