The early adopters of hybrids were idealists or fanatics, who ignored the price premium and were blind to the real world fuel economy returns, which turned out to be far less impressive than the misleading government tests suggested.
Now that reality has set in, the bloom is fading from the economy-focused hybrids. The hybrid models that have sold relatively well in recent months have been performance-oriented designs, such as the Lexus LX400h. Complex and very expensive, performance hybrids are a distortion of the original hybrid premise.
Read Article