Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
Thanks for all of the recommendations and such. I tried my best to get a hybrid...but simply couldn't justify it. Its a strange situation. In reality the vehicle is a mere $1000 more (after the government rebates, about $3000 before). You might think that someone commited to the environment would shell out $1000...and you're right. I had no problem with that. On a lease that $1000 should work out to about $20/month...so the issue would not be the money for me.
The funny thing is that the car companies themselves are limiting the sales. The lease rate is somewhere between 4.9% and 8.4% depending on where you look...whereas it is a mere 1.5% for the vehicle that I ended up getting. The difference works out to virtually double your monthly payment, depending on the features and such that you select.
Honestly, I found this very disheartening. I was more than willing to spend the extra money to do the right thing. That being said, its the same as any ethical investment...you want to do the right thing, but its not a charity. If the money doesn't make some sense then it is just not worth it!
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You were right to skip the hybrid.. In real world testing they get negligably better gas mileage than a regular 4 cyclinder especially in the city. Those cars are designed to get great gas mileage while driving on the EPA treadmill..
http://www.greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/
The best one is the oldest.. The honda insight..
They are so bad in some cases that they have had their mileage ratings re-forecasted
http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretran.../05/hybrid_mpg