Hybrid Cars are a Bad Idea

I philosophically oppose the concept of hybrid cars. The hybrid is a feel-good response to concerns about the environment that doesn’t go near as far as needed. For other folks, hybrid auto is a no-conscience purchase; it’s about saving money on gasoline. Mother Nature deserves better than these gas guzzlers and air polluters.

How about those natural gas vehicles, like the Metro buses moving around Washington, or ethanol-powered alternatives? They’re no better choices than hybrids. All these vehicles are bad for the environment and in their wickedness preserve an oil-based infrastructure and economy that long ago surpassed any meaningful usefulness. 

Hybrids are bad because people will be satisfied with the vehicles. If hybrids succeed, the environment will suffer, because they will be viewed as good-enough alternatives—and they are not! Nothing would be better, because the pressure to take radical environmental action would remain. Hybrids relieve just enough pressure to maintain the status quo. They’re bad for the environment, bad for human beings, but great for the auto and oil industries and their subsidiary supporting economies.

I’ve never been a fan of autos. I walked or bicycled for the first quarter century of my life. At 25, I got a driver’s licenses, and with lots of reluctance.

Where are the radical, new auto designs—vehicles that harness the power of the cheapest and freest energy source on earth? The sun?

According to the National Safety Council: “In urban areas, motor vehicles are responsible for as much as 90 percent of carbon monoxide in the air”. The hybrid isn’t even a half measure, but it’s existence and potential sales success is sure to delay meaningful improvements in auto designs, or—dare I say—replacements.

Photo Credit: Scott Schumacher