January 20, 2009 • 14 mins
Hybrid vehicles are more efficient than standard vehicles when it comes to fuel, but they're also more expensive. Do the savings make up for the added expense? Find out in this HowStuffWorks podcast.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Go behind the wheel and under the hood on everything
automotive with high speed stuff from how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to the podcast. I'm then bowling here with auto
editors Scott Benjamin Scott. I have a question for you,
and it's pretty important to me. Okay, now, it's it's
it's concerning some finances. And I know that sometimes people
(00:23):
don't really talk about these, but I'm gonna be on
the level with you. All right. I'm thinking about buying
a hybrid car. Ye, okay, okay, but I'm I'm a
little bit worried. Um. I hear a lot of advertisements
and basically I want to know from you, the expert
of all things vehicular. Am I actually gonna save money
(00:45):
on fuel if I buy a hybrid? That's a lot
of pressure, expert. You know, I don't think vehicular, but um,
you will. You will save money. Yeah, you will, not
not initially, but eventually you'll get there. You'll save some
money and you'll you'll you will feel like a weekly um,
I guess increase in your your wallet. Um, you know
you won't have to pay quite as much for fuel
(01:05):
it's weekly. See, That's that's the thing. I won't have
to pay quite as much for fuel, and and I'd
like to focus on on the fuel costs here, but
I was looking around at some of the numbers for buying, uh,
your typical internal combustion type uh model of one vehicle,
(01:26):
right and then buying the hybrid version of that, and
it seems like there's a pretty hefty premium. Significant. Yeah,
it's it's it's quite a bit different right now. Um,
hybrid vehicles are still relatively new technology, UM, believe it
or not. I mean, you hear a lot about them,
but um, you know they do cost significantly more than
the standard version of that same vehicle. UM. I can
(01:47):
give you a couple of examples if you threw some numbers.
There's there's something that are exceptionally high, and we'll get
to those in a moment. But you know, the more
typical one, and I guess one that you would see
on the road often would be uh Honda Civic. Oh yeah, okay,
so Civic sedan. Uh, the hybrid version of the Honda
Civic uh sedan. Yeah, I'm getting myself tongue tied here,
(02:07):
but um, the Honda Civic hybrid costs around eight thousand
dollars more than the Honda Civic sedan, you know, non
hybrid version eight eight thousand dollars. You're talking about an
initial purchase price that's eight thousand dollars more than the
sedan price. So all the money I'm saving on gas
until I reach that extra eight thousand, it's kind of
(02:29):
just breaking even that. That's right, if you look at
it apples to apples like that, if you if you
you know, without going into what some of you know,
I've seen a lot of calculators online recently that calculate
the value of the hybrid, and you can those are
excellent tools, by the way, you can use those online.
You can find them anywhere. Really, they go into insurance depreciation, UM.
(02:50):
There's a lot of different things that you know, we're
not going to even talk about taxes things like that,
because you do get a tax break if you buy
a hybrid. You might get a what's a one time
only tax tax break, but you do get it um
and there are also little perks that come along with
hybrid ownership. You can, you know, use h ov lanes
in some states, so you know that's something that I
guess you can't really put a dollar on that, but um,
(03:12):
you know, cost of repairs and depreciation, things like that.
Those are things that other calculators going too, But we're
not really going to talk about that today. We're talking
about just fuel savings. You know, I don't really have
the attention span or a clear understanding of taxes. Can
I understand me either. I'm in fact, just the numbers
for the fuel loan, you know, making go cross that.
(03:33):
I've got a pile of them in front of me
right here. I'd like to read every one of them
to you. I'm not no, I'm not gonna read everyone.
I'm just kidding. But the I did a couple of
calculations using Hannah's website. They've got a calculator that, you know,
compares the Civic Hybrid to either you know the other
you know, any of their lines, or you know, any
(03:55):
any vehicle that you want, your current vehicle. You could
plug in any numbers you want and compare the two
thousand nine Civic Hybrid to that vehicle. Well, what I
did was I plugged in the numbers for the Civic
Hybrid and the Civic Sedan, and so that's two thousand
nine Civic Hybrid, two thousand nine Civic sedan, that's right.
(04:16):
And here's the thing though, the the Civic sedan, the
non hybrid version gets thirty four miles per gallon, which
is that's highway, which is actually really pretty good. Um.
The hybrid gets forty five miles per gallon. So you
can see that the fuel savings isn't going to be tremendous.
I mean, it's it's there, It's definitely there. However, does that,
(04:36):
you know, balance out with that eight thousand dollar initial purchase?
How long does it take to to make that worthwhile
that purchased a worthwhile? Tell me? So? Okay, well, going
through the numbers, I did, you know, a bunch of
different fuel fuel costs, and I kept the other numbers
the same. You know, you can you can enter the
numbers how much you drive either per day, per week,
(04:56):
per month, per year. I did. I did a fifteen
thousand per year calculation, and then I just adjusted the
fuel cost until I got the numbers that I wanted
because they have a five year ownership and a ten
year ownership cost. So um and it and it gives
you numbers along with a savings if you make the
hybrid decision. So it kind of calculated all that out
for us, and just for an example, fuel cost is
(05:18):
three dollars per gallon, the fuel savings over five years
is only six d and seventeen dollars wait over five years,
five years, So still you're still in the hole. Yeah,
that's exactly. Yeah, you're still in the hole. Um so,
but but that again, that's that's comparing a car that
is only nine miles per gallon less than the hybrid version.
(05:38):
So it's it's a pretty good mileage vehicle. Now if
I kind of played around with these numbers up to
the point where you know, it became worthwhile, I guess.
And it's kind of shocking really because you can't put
in a fuel cost of more than five dollars on
this particular calculator. So I had to kind of extrapolate
what I learned from the five dollar cost up to
(06:00):
where I thought that the savings would be. And it's
almost twenty years at four dollars per gallon to save
the initial eight thousand dollar purchase price. Two decades. That
makes sense, I think I'm saying that right. It takes
it takes nearly twenty years at four dollars per gallon
driving fifteen thousand miles a year to make up for
(06:20):
that eight thousand dollar initial purchase price that the hybrid
costs more than the sedan. Yeah that makes sense. Yeah,
I'm not I'm not the most mathematically inclined person, So
so if I understand it, yeah, I'm sure it's pretty clear.
But twenty years is a long time, Scott that is.
But that that again, that's a very narrow margin in
between the highway miles that the the Civic Hybrid provides
(06:41):
versus the the Civic Sedan. Okay, and so we're starting
with two almost almost more closely than average related. That's right,
that's right. Those are very efficient vehicles, both of them.
All right, Now let's look at two very different vehicles.
How's that? That sounds good? Week? Okay. That way, you know,
we'll be able to realize our savings a little bit
earlier than what we do with the you know, the
Honda versus Honda. Okay, I want to hear about something,
(07:04):
maybe not just buying a car straight out, but a
lot of people trade in cars. Yeah, that's right, And
that's what I did. I looked at um, just kind
of a random vehicle that I chose. It's a two
thousand five Jeep Liberty. It's four wheel drive with the
V six engine. The mileage that that gets is around
fifteen in the city and twenty on the highway. It is, Yeah,
(07:25):
that's right. Again, that's twenty miles pergallon on the highway
and Civic Hybrid gets forty five miles pergallon on the highway.
So you can see there's a significant difference. Now. The
thing we want to remember though, when we're comparing a
different vehicle with the hybrid vehicle is you can't really
compare the two of those together. So what you're saying,
what we want to know is we want to know
is it worthwhile to trade in that Jeep on a
(07:45):
Honda vehicle and is that going to be the more
standard I guess, Honda Civic sedan whereas it going to
be the Honda Civic Hybrid. So that's what you want
to find out. You want to figure out the savings
if you decide to choose a hybrid. Have you figured
this out? I have, Yes, I have, so that you
know with that knowledge, and I played around with the
numbers again kind of based on the same information, give
(08:07):
or take what I did on the others. I mean
again fifteen thousand a year, that's right. And remember we
have that eight thousand dollar initial purchase to overcome on
the hybrid. So that's that's kind of what this all
boils down to, is we want to trigger try to
figure out how to overcome that eight thousand dollars. So
again at five years, because that's what you know, the
numbers of the site gives you five and ten uh
(08:27):
five years at an average fuel cost of three dollars
and eighty five cents a gallon. That's what I had
to bump the numbers up to just to make the
five year thing work. That's when you would overcome the
eight thousand dollar purchase price. So if fuel is three
eighty five, which I could really realistically see that being
a three five gallon over that five years, you know,
for an average, it would take five years to overcome
the eight thousand dollars. You know, uh, Scott on the
(08:49):
level with you, five years is still a very long
time to me, you know, as as absent minded as
I am, is there is there any scenario where I
could I could get out of the red ink a
little bit more quickly? Oh? Man, um, well, I guess
you could if you're if you're trading down, I guess
in vehicles, let's say that, Um, you know you've got
(09:10):
a real high line vehicle, you know, something very expensive
and something that's you know, a gas guzzler, and you
know you've got a high payment and you want to
get a you know, Hanna Civic and it's still an
expensive car. It's not a cheap car. Um. You know
it's right around I think it's around two. Really tired
of my Lamborghin, I'm sure you are. Yeah, I wouldn't
get tired of that very quick. Yes, it's around twenty
(09:32):
four dollars the initial purchase price. That's that's significant. Okay,
it's not anating to sneeze at, um, but that may
be significantly less than you know, someone who's driving you know,
the top of line BMW that gets twelve miles a
gallon or whatever it does. So yeah, you could you
could realize some initial savings that way. Um. And you know,
of course you're gonna feel that in your you know,
on your wallet at the end of the week, when
(09:52):
you know you're not dumping in you know, sixty dollars
twice a week, you're gonna be putting in you know,
forty dollars once a week, or you know, you may
be even less. I don't, no, Scott, you know what
we should do, just just for the sake of full disclosure,
we should let everyone know that, uh, neither neither of
us on a Lamborghini. Now that's right. I didn't think
anybody really was. I was fearing that. Oh yeah, well,
(10:15):
well we we just want to make sure. We just
want to be honest here. Now that's okay. So trading
down is probably a way to see some more immediate
savings on fuel there um, past the price of of
the hybrid. Now you told me earlier there were some
extreme examples. Oh yes, definitely, and I looked these up online,
(10:35):
kipling her head a list of these. Um, you know,
it's kind of a you know, our hybrid is worth
the price. I found out when I was doing some
research for this, and they had some, I guess, just extremes,
like you said, extreme examples of you know where the
purchase price and initial purchase price. We talked about the
eight thousand dollars for the Hanna Civic hybrid Um that's
nothing we do. Hear some of these the Chevy Tahoe
(10:57):
hybrid cost ten thousand, ten thousand, seven hundred more than
the Tahoe LT ten thousand more. That's right, and we're
only climbing here, so so hold on your seat. But
the Lexus GS f H recording to this article costs
sixteen thou nine hundred more than the g S threeft
it is. But here's the top. The Lexus LS six
(11:20):
h L cost thirty five thousand dollars more in total
costs in the LS six L, mainly because of its
thirty two thousand dollar higher sticker price. So for a
hybrid version of the Lexus, which this is the LS
four sixty L that we're talking about, it costs thirty
two thousand dollars more more than the Lexus L s
(11:44):
h L two thousand dollars. That's right. That's more money
than firefighters make starting off. I actually think I just
said that backwards with the H there. But you get
the point that that level of Lexus is costing thirty
two dollars more just for that hybrid choice. Now, how
much in fuel savings do you think you need to
I didn't figure this out because the calculator just quite
(12:05):
simply doesn't go that high, but I would think that
you're holding onto that car for a few decades at
extremely at extremely high fuel prices. Yeah, at least I'm
gonna's hazard to guests, say, at least to two decades,
maybe two and a half. I'm taking two to two
and a half centuries now, I'm kidding. I don't really know.
I just I didn't figure it out, but you know, yeah,
(12:25):
it's up there, I'm sure so. So I guess there's uh,
if I buy a hybrid today, depending on how I
do it, I'm not going to save as much money
at the bottom line as maybe the advertisements want me
to believe. That's right, yeah, because they you know, I've
heard a few of these recently where they say, you know,
the car pace for itself, you know, dump that gas
(12:46):
guzzler and get a hybrid. You know, that's that's good.
You probably should. But you know, as far as you
know the car paying for itself, you can see how
long that really takes, you know, to be true at
least and fuel saving. Yeah, And I don't even know
if paying for itself is really a good way to
say it. It's just a sneaky way to, you know,
say that sell it. That's exactly right. Well, I you know,
I guess also we we should mention that for a
(13:09):
lot of a lot of people who buy hybrids are
considering buying a hybrid vehicle. The the idea of benefits,
the benefits of buying these kind of machines are are
not restricted, you know, solely to saving money on fuel.
There there's a lot of soft benefits, like like we
mentioned earlier, driving in the h OV lane. Of course, yeah,
(13:30):
you can do and you can do things like that,
and of course you know, you're you're reducing our dependency
on foreign oil and you know, etcetera, etcetera. There's a
there's a lot of environmental benefits and driving a hybrid.
You know, uh, this hybrid issue is a pretty uh,
pretty relevant issue nowadays and we can only see it increasing.
So if you would like to learn more about hybrid
(13:51):
vehicles and again all things vehicular, please drop by the
Auto channel and how stuff Works do at home for
more on this and thousands of other topics. This at
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
M M M
Go behind the wheel and under the hood on everything
automotive with high speed stuff from how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to the podcast. I'm then bowling here with auto
editors Scott Benjamin Scott. I have a question for you,
and it's pretty important to me. Okay, now, it's it's
it's concerning some finances. And I know that sometimes people
(00:23):
don't really talk about these, but I'm gonna be on
the level with you. All right. I'm thinking about buying
a hybrid car. Ye, okay, okay, but I'm I'm a
little bit worried. Um. I hear a lot of advertisements
and basically I want to know from you, the expert
of all things vehicular. Am I actually gonna save money
(00:45):
on fuel if I buy a hybrid? That's a lot
of pressure, expert. You know, I don't think vehicular, but um,
you will. You will save money. Yeah, you will, not
not initially, but eventually you'll get there. You'll save some
money and you'll you'll you will feel like a weekly um,
I guess increase in your your wallet. Um, you know
you won't have to pay quite as much for fuel
(01:05):
it's weekly. See, That's that's the thing. I won't have
to pay quite as much for fuel, and and I'd
like to focus on on the fuel costs here, but
I was looking around at some of the numbers for buying, uh,
your typical internal combustion type uh model of one vehicle,
(01:26):
right and then buying the hybrid version of that, and
it seems like there's a pretty hefty premium. Significant. Yeah,
it's it's it's quite a bit different right now. Um,
hybrid vehicles are still relatively new technology, UM, believe it
or not. I mean, you hear a lot about them,
but um, you know they do cost significantly more than
the standard version of that same vehicle. UM. I can
(01:47):
give you a couple of examples if you threw some numbers.
There's there's something that are exceptionally high, and we'll get
to those in a moment. But you know, the more
typical one, and I guess one that you would see
on the road often would be uh Honda Civic. Oh yeah, okay,
so Civic sedan. Uh, the hybrid version of the Honda
Civic uh sedan. Yeah, I'm getting myself tongue tied here,
(02:07):
but um, the Honda Civic hybrid costs around eight thousand
dollars more than the Honda Civic sedan, you know, non
hybrid version eight eight thousand dollars. You're talking about an
initial purchase price that's eight thousand dollars more than the
sedan price. So all the money I'm saving on gas
until I reach that extra eight thousand, it's kind of
(02:29):
just breaking even that. That's right, if you look at
it apples to apples like that, if you if you
you know, without going into what some of you know,
I've seen a lot of calculators online recently that calculate
the value of the hybrid, and you can those are
excellent tools, by the way, you can use those online.
You can find them anywhere. Really, they go into insurance depreciation, UM.
(02:50):
There's a lot of different things that you know, we're
not going to even talk about taxes things like that,
because you do get a tax break if you buy
a hybrid. You might get a what's a one time
only tax tax break, but you do get it um
and there are also little perks that come along with
hybrid ownership. You can, you know, use h ov lanes
in some states, so you know that's something that I
guess you can't really put a dollar on that, but um,
(03:12):
you know, cost of repairs and depreciation, things like that.
Those are things that other calculators going too, But we're
not really going to talk about that today. We're talking
about just fuel savings. You know, I don't really have
the attention span or a clear understanding of taxes. Can
I understand me either. I'm in fact, just the numbers
for the fuel loan, you know, making go cross that.
(03:33):
I've got a pile of them in front of me
right here. I'd like to read every one of them
to you. I'm not no, I'm not gonna read everyone.
I'm just kidding. But the I did a couple of
calculations using Hannah's website. They've got a calculator that, you know,
compares the Civic Hybrid to either you know the other
you know, any of their lines, or you know, any
(03:55):
any vehicle that you want, your current vehicle. You could
plug in any numbers you want and compare the two
thousand nine Civic Hybrid to that vehicle. Well, what I
did was I plugged in the numbers for the Civic
Hybrid and the Civic Sedan, and so that's two thousand
nine Civic Hybrid, two thousand nine Civic sedan, that's right.
(04:16):
And here's the thing though, the the Civic sedan, the
non hybrid version gets thirty four miles per gallon, which
is that's highway, which is actually really pretty good. Um.
The hybrid gets forty five miles per gallon. So you
can see that the fuel savings isn't going to be tremendous.
I mean, it's it's there, It's definitely there. However, does that,
(04:36):
you know, balance out with that eight thousand dollar initial purchase?
How long does it take to to make that worthwhile
that purchased a worthwhile? Tell me? So? Okay, well, going
through the numbers, I did, you know, a bunch of
different fuel fuel costs, and I kept the other numbers
the same. You know, you can you can enter the
numbers how much you drive either per day, per week,
(04:56):
per month, per year. I did. I did a fifteen
thousand per year calculation, and then I just adjusted the
fuel cost until I got the numbers that I wanted
because they have a five year ownership and a ten
year ownership cost. So um and it and it gives
you numbers along with a savings if you make the
hybrid decision. So it kind of calculated all that out
for us, and just for an example, fuel cost is
(05:18):
three dollars per gallon, the fuel savings over five years
is only six d and seventeen dollars wait over five years,
five years, So still you're still in the hole. Yeah,
that's exactly. Yeah, you're still in the hole. Um so,
but but that again, that's that's comparing a car that
is only nine miles per gallon less than the hybrid version.
(05:38):
So it's it's a pretty good mileage vehicle. Now if
I kind of played around with these numbers up to
the point where you know, it became worthwhile, I guess.
And it's kind of shocking really because you can't put
in a fuel cost of more than five dollars on
this particular calculator. So I had to kind of extrapolate
what I learned from the five dollar cost up to
(06:00):
where I thought that the savings would be. And it's
almost twenty years at four dollars per gallon to save
the initial eight thousand dollar purchase price. Two decades. That
makes sense, I think I'm saying that right. It takes
it takes nearly twenty years at four dollars per gallon
driving fifteen thousand miles a year to make up for
(06:20):
that eight thousand dollar initial purchase price that the hybrid
costs more than the sedan. Yeah that makes sense. Yeah,
I'm not I'm not the most mathematically inclined person, So
so if I understand it, yeah, I'm sure it's pretty clear.
But twenty years is a long time, Scott that is.
But that that again, that's a very narrow margin in
between the highway miles that the the Civic Hybrid provides
(06:41):
versus the the Civic Sedan. Okay, and so we're starting
with two almost almost more closely than average related. That's right,
that's right. Those are very efficient vehicles, both of them.
All right, Now let's look at two very different vehicles.
How's that? That sounds good? Week? Okay. That way, you know,
we'll be able to realize our savings a little bit
earlier than what we do with the you know, the
Honda versus Honda. Okay, I want to hear about something,
(07:04):
maybe not just buying a car straight out, but a
lot of people trade in cars. Yeah, that's right, And
that's what I did. I looked at um, just kind
of a random vehicle that I chose. It's a two
thousand five Jeep Liberty. It's four wheel drive with the
V six engine. The mileage that that gets is around
fifteen in the city and twenty on the highway. It is, Yeah,
(07:25):
that's right. Again, that's twenty miles pergallon on the highway
and Civic Hybrid gets forty five miles pergallon on the highway.
So you can see there's a significant difference. Now. The
thing we want to remember though, when we're comparing a
different vehicle with the hybrid vehicle is you can't really
compare the two of those together. So what you're saying,
what we want to know is we want to know
is it worthwhile to trade in that Jeep on a
(07:45):
Honda vehicle and is that going to be the more
standard I guess, Honda Civic sedan whereas it going to
be the Honda Civic Hybrid. So that's what you want
to find out. You want to figure out the savings
if you decide to choose a hybrid. Have you figured
this out? I have, Yes, I have, so that you
know with that knowledge, and I played around with the
numbers again kind of based on the same information, give
(08:07):
or take what I did on the others. I mean
again fifteen thousand a year, that's right. And remember we
have that eight thousand dollar initial purchase to overcome on
the hybrid. So that's that's kind of what this all
boils down to, is we want to trigger try to
figure out how to overcome that eight thousand dollars. So
again at five years, because that's what you know, the
numbers of the site gives you five and ten uh
(08:27):
five years at an average fuel cost of three dollars
and eighty five cents a gallon. That's what I had
to bump the numbers up to just to make the
five year thing work. That's when you would overcome the
eight thousand dollar purchase price. So if fuel is three
eighty five, which I could really realistically see that being
a three five gallon over that five years, you know,
for an average, it would take five years to overcome
the eight thousand dollars. You know, uh, Scott on the
(08:49):
level with you, five years is still a very long
time to me, you know, as as absent minded as
I am, is there is there any scenario where I
could I could get out of the red ink a
little bit more quickly? Oh? Man, um, well, I guess
you could if you're if you're trading down, I guess
in vehicles, let's say that, Um, you know you've got
(09:10):
a real high line vehicle, you know, something very expensive
and something that's you know, a gas guzzler, and you
know you've got a high payment and you want to
get a you know, Hanna Civic and it's still an
expensive car. It's not a cheap car. Um. You know
it's right around I think it's around two. Really tired
of my Lamborghin, I'm sure you are. Yeah, I wouldn't
get tired of that very quick. Yes, it's around twenty
(09:32):
four dollars the initial purchase price. That's that's significant. Okay,
it's not anating to sneeze at, um, but that may
be significantly less than you know, someone who's driving you know,
the top of line BMW that gets twelve miles a
gallon or whatever it does. So yeah, you could you
could realize some initial savings that way. Um. And you know,
of course you're gonna feel that in your you know,
on your wallet at the end of the week, when
(09:52):
you know you're not dumping in you know, sixty dollars
twice a week, you're gonna be putting in you know,
forty dollars once a week, or you know, you may
be even less. I don't, no, Scott, you know what
we should do, just just for the sake of full disclosure,
we should let everyone know that, uh, neither neither of
us on a Lamborghini. Now that's right. I didn't think
anybody really was. I was fearing that. Oh yeah, well,
(10:15):
well we we just want to make sure. We just
want to be honest here. Now that's okay. So trading
down is probably a way to see some more immediate
savings on fuel there um, past the price of of
the hybrid. Now you told me earlier there were some
extreme examples. Oh yes, definitely, and I looked these up online,
(10:35):
kipling her head a list of these. Um, you know,
it's kind of a you know, our hybrid is worth
the price. I found out when I was doing some
research for this, and they had some, I guess, just extremes,
like you said, extreme examples of you know where the
purchase price and initial purchase price. We talked about the
eight thousand dollars for the Hanna Civic hybrid Um that's
nothing we do. Hear some of these the Chevy Tahoe
(10:57):
hybrid cost ten thousand, ten thousand, seven hundred more than
the Tahoe LT ten thousand more. That's right, and we're
only climbing here, so so hold on your seat. But
the Lexus GS f H recording to this article costs
sixteen thou nine hundred more than the g S threeft
it is. But here's the top. The Lexus LS six
(11:20):
h L cost thirty five thousand dollars more in total
costs in the LS six L, mainly because of its
thirty two thousand dollar higher sticker price. So for a
hybrid version of the Lexus, which this is the LS
four sixty L that we're talking about, it costs thirty
two thousand dollars more more than the Lexus L s
(11:44):
h L two thousand dollars. That's right. That's more money
than firefighters make starting off. I actually think I just
said that backwards with the H there. But you get
the point that that level of Lexus is costing thirty
two dollars more just for that hybrid choice. Now, how
much in fuel savings do you think you need to
I didn't figure this out because the calculator just quite
(12:05):
simply doesn't go that high, but I would think that
you're holding onto that car for a few decades at
extremely at extremely high fuel prices. Yeah, at least I'm
gonna's hazard to guests, say, at least to two decades,
maybe two and a half. I'm taking two to two
and a half centuries now, I'm kidding. I don't really know.
I just I didn't figure it out, but you know, yeah,
(12:25):
it's up there, I'm sure so. So I guess there's uh,
if I buy a hybrid today, depending on how I
do it, I'm not going to save as much money
at the bottom line as maybe the advertisements want me
to believe. That's right, yeah, because they you know, I've
heard a few of these recently where they say, you know,
the car pace for itself, you know, dump that gas
(12:46):
guzzler and get a hybrid. You know, that's that's good.
You probably should. But you know, as far as you
know the car paying for itself, you can see how
long that really takes, you know, to be true at
least and fuel saving. Yeah, And I don't even know
if paying for itself is really a good way to
say it. It's just a sneaky way to, you know,
say that sell it. That's exactly right. Well, I you know,
I guess also we we should mention that for a
(13:09):
lot of a lot of people who buy hybrids are
considering buying a hybrid vehicle. The the idea of benefits,
the benefits of buying these kind of machines are are
not restricted, you know, solely to saving money on fuel.
There there's a lot of soft benefits, like like we
mentioned earlier, driving in the h OV lane. Of course, yeah,
(13:30):
you can do and you can do things like that,
and of course you know, you're you're reducing our dependency
on foreign oil and you know, etcetera, etcetera. There's a
there's a lot of environmental benefits and driving a hybrid.
You know, uh, this hybrid issue is a pretty uh,
pretty relevant issue nowadays and we can only see it increasing.
So if you would like to learn more about hybrid
(13:51):
vehicles and again all things vehicular, please drop by the
Auto channel and how stuff Works do at home for
more on this and thousands of other topics. This at
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
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