Pig ugly hybrids.. WHY???

[philKS2]

My wife's long serving Golf TDi is finally due to be replaced, and cos she does lots of traffic-heavy town driving I'd love to get her a hybrid.... (hey if she's being green, then I can keep my turbo!!)

(the Golf does 55mpg in traffic..but she's a clattery old chugger with 160k on the clock)

But why are there so few choices in hybrids.

The Prius would be fine - but what a horrid boring box

Honda do a Civic - but not the nice wedge-shaped hatchback one, no, it's n ugly plain 4-door booted saloon. And their Insight is pretty sh*t too.

Is it because car makers think people who want to be green have no taste and need to be punished!!

grrr....

(ps - has anyone had long term experience of Pirus/Insight they can pass on?)

[curlyks2]

Research done into this (see this link) shows that...

But a strong reason for selecting a hybrid is the “distinctive styling” or styling ques it projects or has. Insight buyers and Prius owners list this as a highly critical reason for making the particular selection. This also a likely reason the Ford Escape and Honda hybrids seem to be languishing. It simply can't be identified easily as a hybrid and for the premium paid it lacks instant recognition.

A colleague has just test driven a Pious, and concluded that it's more expensive, requires more environmentally unfriendly metals (in the batteries etc), and gets worse fuel consumption than (say) a Golf or Polo BlueMotion.

Also, one of the few things that the Green Party and Top Gear agree on (commented on in the last series), is that it is overall better for the environment to keep an old reliable car (particularly when it's a fuel efficient one) than replace it with anything newer. It appears that the manufacuring footprint of the new one and disposal footprint of the old are not totally "offset" by the better running footprint of the new.

Ck.

[Rusty]

Most hybrids are Japenese, hardly a hotbed of gorgeous car design... then again, would you trust an Italian hybrid, they'd wire it up wrong so it sent 12V through the steering wheel or the motor rotated the wrong way

VW or BMW diesel would be a better bet and doesn't make you look like a smug @£$%

[Error404]

Hybrids are a white elephant in terms of being "green" - impact of production massively outweighs any economy benefts

[MidnightBlueS2]

No need for hybrid yet and no need for big wallet either for the treehuggers.

Get a Lupo 3L - 1.2 TDI and get 3 liters per 100 km, stylish little car, well built and reliable and only 81gr CO2, much less than most hybrids !

I got one for as little as 4500 GBP !

[4WheelDrifter]

LMAO at choosing a car to be 'green'. Do people really do that?

Anyway, my 'hybrid' S8 (well, it has a solar sunroof ) only does 30 mpg max, whereas the best I have averaged in the Lupo is 118mpg. So that proves hybrids are rubbish.