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"If I'm not careful, I'm going to get a big speeding ticket one of these days," Elsa Jarosz of Wyandotte says of her Honda Accord Hybrid, a gas-electric sedan that boasts 255 horsepower.2005 New York Auto Show
Hot-rod hybrids offer power without the guilt
Automakers unveil green machines that don't sacrifice size or performance.
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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.
DaimlerChrysler's Mercedes-Benz luxury car division may build hybrid versions of some of its priciest vehicles, the new R-Class sport wagon making its debut today at the New York auto show, and the top-of-the-line S-Class sedan. Mercedes has already displayed diesel-hybrid concept vehicles.
Even Porsche AG, which is uncompromising when it comes to performance, is considering a hybrid version of its Cayenne SUV.
The thinking behind the new wave of high-performance hybrids is that most U.S. consumers will choose a more fuel-efficient option as long as it's not perceived as being wimpy.
Honda's hybrid Insight two-seater compact was the first on the market and is still the most fuel-efficient, but sales have been disappointing. Many customers moved up to Honda's larger Civic hybrid, introduced two years later.
Last year, Ford Motor Co. introduced a hybrid Escape SUV as its first gas-electric vehicle.
But as automakers introduce hybrid versions of bigger vehicles with bigger gas engines, the overall fuel economy is declining, according to research by Edmunds.com, an online shopping site for car buyers.
In 2000, the first full year a hybrid -- the Honda Insight -- was on the market, hybrid fuel economy averaged 65 miles per gallon. Now, with seven hybrids on the market, average fuel economy has slipped to around 45 mpg, according to Edmunds.com.
Over the same period, average horsepower for hybrids has climbed from 73 to 176.4 this year.
That's because the first hybrids were basically electric cars supplemented by gasoline engines that would charge the batteries and increase driving range, said Jeremy Anwyl, president of Edmunds.
"Now, what has flipped around is that you've got big gas engines with supplemental electrical engines. It's more analogous to a super-charger, where the technology is being used to provide extra horsepower as much as better fuel economy."
The new Honda Accord hybrid, while it packs more of a punch than several of its competitors, gets just 7 more miles per gallon than its gasoline counterpart, Anwyl said.
That raises the question of why someone would pay a $3,000 to $4,000 premium for a hybrid when their savings at the pump may only be marginal.
"By the time you start to save money from the fuel economy, you're really six years into it," said Robert Duronio, analyst with PricewaterhouseCoopers' Autofacts division in Detroit.
U.S. sales of hybrid vehicles have more than doubled in the last two years, coming in around 80,000 in 2004. By 2011, J.D. Power and Associates estimates automakers will be marketing 38 hybrid models -- 17 cars and 21 light trucks, with annual demand reaching 535,000 units.
While that is just a fraction of the U.S. market's annual sales of close to 17 million new cars and trucks, the growing popularity of hybrids has encouraged Detroit automakers to get into the game.
Chrysler Group CEO Dieter Zetsche said this month the automaker had misjudged hybrids in the early days, focusing too much on the cost and physical limitations of the technology, but now recognizes their value.
"We allowed hybrid technology to take a moral high ground in the press and public perception, especially in the Northeast and on the West Coast," Zetsche said.
"We've learned from that experience. And we're acting."
General Motors Corp. and DaimlerChrysler have announced plans to team up to develop hybrid systems for light trucks as well as cars. Although the biggest manufacturers of hybrids are starting to see economies of scale, the cars are still more expensive to produce than conventional gas-powered vehicles.
Experts say the real potential for hybrids may be for large SUVs.
"The bigger the vehicle, the more fossil fuel it is typically burning," Duronio said.
Detroit News Staff Writer Christine Tierney contributed to this report. You can reach Brett Clanton at (313) 222-2612 or bclanton@detnews.com.
After the success of the Prius hybrid, Toyota will start selling a premium hybrid SUV next month -- the Lexus RX400h.
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The Detroit News.
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