Sport Cars i8 Concept

Is there a market for Hybrid Vehicles in the United States? The problem is compelling. When gas prices shot up last year averaging about $3.76 a gallon, everyone was looking to save at the pumps. Car makers were selling lots of compact cars. America's vehicles were getting smaller.

Then the opposite happened. Gas prices started to fall and Americans went back to buying Ford F150's and powerful full size SUV's. The car markers and dealerships had the problem of lots of compact vehicles and some Hybrid Vehicles on their lots and no buyers.

So what are the car makers to do? What about consumers? Do we have to guess at what the market will bring? Will there be another "cash for clunker program"?

Well the answer is we have to be savvy buyers. We are going to have to ask ourselves how big of a vehicle do we want? Do we buy compact, subcompact, SUV, hybrid, or even truck?

What we ultimately would like are larger vehicles that uses less fuel. Oh yes, but not at the expense of giving up on power or reliability.

Fortunately technology is addressing this issue and the answer is in Hybrid vehicles and cleaner burning diesel cars and trucks.

What is a hybrid vehicle? Well it is any vehicle that combines two or more sources of power that can directly or indirectly provide propulsion power to act in unison or independently of each other.Wow that's a mouthful. Basically it can if it would like to, do two things at the same time.

Hybrid vehicles have very sophisticated electric motors and generators that are used to produce electrical power.The electric motor in the units use batteries which are used to draw energy to accelerate the car or truck. But acting as a generator, it can also slow the car down and return energy back to the batteries.