History of the Hybrid Car

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Ron Coogan, with greencar.com. Today, we're going to talk about the history of hybrid electric cars. It all started in December of 1999, with a Honda Insight, a gasoline electric hybrid, that got up to 70 miles per gallon, sold for about twenty thousand dollars, and really shook up the market. It's not that it sold in great numbers, because Honda was hesitant about making too many of them. It was all new. The market was unsure, but they were rolled out to Honda dealers, and many were snapped up right away. It was followed by the Toyota Prius, which had been in development for some time. That was the first generation Prius. Now, we're several generations later, into the new model. That was followed afterward with the Altima Hybrid, the Civic Hybrid, many, many, hybrid models. We have over a dozen now, ranging from small sedans to SUV's. Hybrid electric vehicles are more expensive than other vehicles. Usually, maybe about three thousand dollars more, maybe four. Some people have to justify that extra cost, but the fuel savings often make up that difference, in a number of years. Most of the hybrids that are out, the ones that are the Civic Hybrid, the Prius, in the twenty, twenty five thousand dollar range. Other ones like the Tahoe Hybrid, closer to about forty five thousand, or fifty thousand, for a much larger vehicle. Hybrids are going to continue to be very popular, because they get extremely high fuel efficiency, and their extremely low emission, so that addresses greenhouse gas emissions, and air quality issues in our cities. Hybrids will continue to evolve. We'll see more and more models, everything from sports cars, to highly fuel efficient sedans. Hybrids for certain, are here to stay."