Gas prices are $3/gallon, wait no $4/gallon, wait maybe even as high as $5/gallon? You’ve got to be kidding me. When I started driving it was only $1/gallon and that wasn’t all that long ago at all. We can blame politics, war, economics, or any number of things, but if you’re like me you want relief now. Higher fuel efficiency can’t come fast enough.
Of course, not everyone wants to drive a tiny little Prius. Lots of drivers want both fuel economy as well as maybe a little bit of fun. Of course, if you drive a sports car, then you should get ready to spend a lots on gas. Most of the time fast cars means terrible fuel economy.
For most of us, there is no way we can justify driving a fast, sexy car like a Camaro or Mustang. For the average Joe, it just makes more sense to drive something like a Honda Civic. The Civic provides much better gas mileage than the average sports car. Yet why do people still drool and save money to buy a sports car? Perhaps they lust for speed, but then again, if the speed limits on most highways is 65 miles per hour or maybe 75 miles per hour, having a vehicle that can go up to 150-200 m.p.h. just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense does it?
In the last few years a technology known as Hybrid technology is being uses more to create energy efficient automobiles. These cars are designed to be light, intelligent, and economical. They utilize a combination of both a gas and electric engines to maximize fuel efficiently.
Most hybrid vehicles are designed for city use driving. Where vehicles in the past would get 25-35 miles per gallon in the city, vehicles like the Toyota Prius get an astounding 48 m.p.g. in the city and 45 m.p.g. on the highway. At a time where gas prices are spiraling out of control, doubling your vehicle’s fuel efficiency is a great way to save some money.
The major complaint of course with the Prius and hybrid vehicles in general is that their engine, is small and slow. It’s not so bad to drive in the city, but getting up to speed on the highway takes a while. Nobody in their right mind would declare the Prius to be sporty by any stretch of the word.
However, car manufacturers today are now opening up a new line of hybrid cars. A kind of hybrid sports car. These hybrid cars are designed to achieve high amounts of speed but at the same time, take advantage of fuel saving hybrid technology.
Probably the first big hybrid sports car could surprisingly come from Chevrolet. It is called the Chevy Volt. It’s a mostly electric car designed to run for a whole 40 miles without using any gas at all. After that, the vehicle becomes a gas/electric hybrid. Since the average person only drives about 40 miles a day, the vehicle could run most days purely on electricity. Chevrolet estimates that the vehicle could average about 150 miles per gallon. Yet, at the same time the Chevy Volt looks quite sporty. No word has come from Chevrolet about how fast the Volt will go and what kind of horsepower it will achieve, but it will be a big step forward for the hybrid sports car for sure.