Topic: ？？？ Hybrid vs fuel, which one?

[kmcatkk]

donno hybrid is better than the regular fuel engine cars. looking at Honda Insight and Toyota Matrix.
anyone can help me out?

[gotak]

IT really depends a lot on your highway to city driving mix and also on your foot.

Also what would "better" mean to you? There's no one universal definition of better. Also even hybrid itself isn't just 1 type of car. You have hybrid cars, SUVs, even buses. What kind of vehicle are you looking for?

In general if you drive city all the time the hybrid could be better. Although a lot of small cars return just as good fuel economy as a hybrid (mini for example is pretty fugal). On the highway however hybrids are stuck  using their engine all the time like the rest of us while hauling a heavy battery pack so they don't do well and sometimes they actually do worse fuel economy wise.

Conventional drive train can last a long long time. Hybrids have only been on the market for a short while and once the warranty it's a big question how much repair would cost, especially for the battery packs.

[airbalancer]

On the highway however hybrids are stuck  using their engine all the time like the rest of us while hauling a heavy battery pack so they don't do well and sometimes they actually do worse fuel economy wise 

Do you have any real world proof?
Do you have any seat time in one?

[gotak]

My friend drives a lexus 400h he gets better city fuel economy than I do in my sentra in the city but overall it's a wash when he's on the highway. We both drive pretty heavy footed.

[rrocket]

My friend drives a lexus 400h he gets better city fuel economy than I do in my sentra in the city but overall it's a wash when he's on the highway. We both drive pretty heavy footed.

So you're comparing a Sentra to an RX400??   

It's not a wash when comparing apples to apples.  The RX450H get 10% better fuel mileage highway than the gas powered RX350.