Hot-rod hybrids offer power without the guilt (2005 NY Auto Show)

[Dover]

2005 New York Auto Show

Hot-rod hybrids offer power without the guilt

Automakers unveil green machines that don't sacrifice size or performance.

By Brett Clanton / The Detroit News
NEW YORK -- When it came time to buy a new car recently, Elsa Jarosz wanted an environmentally friendly hybrid, but she also wanted a little get-up-and-go.


The answer turned out to be the Honda Accord Hybrid, a gas-electric sedan that boasts 255 horsepower, races zero to 60 in 7 seconds and gets 37 mpg on the highway.

"I can accelerate so quickly," said the 46-year-old audiologist from Wyandotte. "I look down and I'm going 80 miles per hour, and I feel like I'm on a cloud. If I'm not careful, I'm going to get a big speeding ticket one of these days."

Forget the puny, funky-looking hybrids that burst onto the scene five years ago; the new generation of gas-electric vehicles offers plenty of horsepower with none of the guilt.

"It's kind of like having your cake without the calories," said Bill Ussery, spokesman for Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus brand.

Lexus is unveiling the new GS 430h today at the New York auto show. The rear-wheel-drive sedan accelerates as fast as if it were powered by a 4.5-liter, V-8 engine but emits far less pollution and gets more than 30 mpg.

It's a no-compromises vehicle that may be reaching the market at the perfect time. Gas prices are soaring past $2 a gallon, denting sales of fuel-chugging large SUVs. But Americans remain hooked on horsepower.

"People want performance, and they also want to look good," said Margaret Krikorian, a psychologist who studies car buyers for the research firm Iceology. "What looks better that driving a Lexus hybrid?"

Marketing hybrids as both green and mean is a new strategy for automakers such as Toyota and Honda, the leading sellers of hybrids, and may offer a template for other automakers preparing to launch hybrids.

By combining a gas engine and an electric motor, hybrid technology delivers the kind of satisfying performance that many customers crave.

"As a launch force, the electric motor is ideal because you have all your torque immediately available," said Stuart McCullough, director of Lexus Europe.

After the huge success of Toyota's Prius hybrid car, the automaker will start selling a premium hybrid sport utility vehicle next month -- the Lexus RX 400h, which produces 270 horsepower. Lexus is considering the technology for all of its vehicles, even the most upscale...>>

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0503/23/A01-126133.htm

[RubyCat]

1. The sun is setting on the Big Three automakers.

Since the 90's, we progressives have tried to tell them of the technological changes on the horizon and the need to explore alternatives to the internal combustion engine.

Not surprisingly, the people in power responded in defiance by releasing the 8mpg Hummer.

When is the establishment going to realize that we progressives are right not just on this but on so many other issues? It's better that they to do it now than later because it's just going to get worse for them if they close their eyes to it. It's not healthy being in denial. Keep it up for too long and you'll end up with a nervous breakdown.

[midnight armadillo]

2. But but GM says hybrids are hype!

Bob Lutz said that hybrids were a marketing trick by Toyota! Any day now the American people will come to their senses and go back to their massive Suburbans, Hummers, and Exursions like good patriots. Right GM? Right Ford? (DaimlerChrysler is betting on diesels, like the other big Euro makers)

[AndyTiedye]

4. Yeah. Right After the Iraqis all Roll Over and Let Us Steal Their Oil

Their business plan, if you can call it that, was predicated
on turning Iraq into an obedient colony that would offer no
resistance to us pumping out all their oil. Repeat as needed
in (insert oil-producing country here).

[phantom power]

3. "they want to look good"

Is it *completely* inconceivable to these navel-gazers that there might actually be a real *problem* with burning so much fossil fuel, and that some people might actually want *do* something about that?