As gasoline prices creep past $4.00 per gallon, each of us are giving serious thought to our driving habit and ways to conserve fuel.  Many of us are interested in vehicles equipped with Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive System due to it’s superior Fuel Efficiency.  However, this fuel efficiency comes at a price.  So the question becomes “How long do I have to drive a Hybrid before it pays off?”

Above, you see a Toyota Camry Hybrid, a Prius and a Highlander Hybrid.  As many of you know, few, if any of Hybrid vehicles, are even available for sale due to a manufacturing shortage of batteries.   Further, through timed cost benefit analysis, it quickly becomes apparent that it is going to take a LONG time for one to recover the difference in cost between a Hybrid and a standard Toyota through increased fuel savings.  Let’s look at some examples:

So as a minimum, you are looking at nearly 20 years before you recover the cost difference between Toyota's standard Gas Mileage Champions and a Hybrid.  Yes, Toyota's Hybrid Technology is clearly better than any other mass produced option in the market as of this writing.  But when was the last time YOU kept a car 20 or more years?   Across all makes and models in the greater Las Vegas area, the average finance contract is active for only 41 months.  So what that means is that while most people may finance a car for 60 to 72 months, they trade it in early!  And if they do that with a Hyrbid instead of Toyota's standard automobiles, they Never really get the advantage of owning a Hyrbid concerning gas mileage.  If you want to save REAL money (over all ownership cost), take a look at the following vehicles:

With gasoline at record prices, demand for some (though not all) gas-electric hybrid vehicles is booming. Nationally, the average Toyota Prius is getting sold just 13 days after hitting the showroom floor, according to Power Information Network data sampled from dealerships. In our Western market, they last hours at best.  A year ago, it took 24 days to sell a Prius. Prius sales dropped 38% in May compared to a year ago, but that was because Toyota dealers were running out of cars to sell. Dealers had just 3,832 unsold at the end of a month during which they sold more than 15,000 cars.
 
The stampede toward hybrid technology reflects the much broader rush toward smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles that has roiled the auto market as gasoline prices started topping $4 a gallon. Hybrid fever seems to be everywhere, as car makers compete to demonstrate their pro-hybrid bona fides.

The problem is that even at $4 a gallon, most current hybrid vehicles won't save their owners enough at the pump to pay back quickly the price premium over similar, conventional vehicles. The numbers have gotten better, of course, as gasoline prices have risen. But buying a hybrid isn't financial a no-brainer. It depends on your starting point – what vehicle you drive today – what you are willing to consider as an alternative to a hybrid, and how much you value the non-monetary benefits of hybrid ownership.

Consumer Reports in 2006 did an elaborate analysis, factoring in depreciation, savings from tax credits and maintenance costs and concluded that most hybrids cost more over five years than their standard counterparts. Over longer periods, some hybrids get into the money.

But if what you're really after is the best mileage for dollar spent, most people will conclude that Hybrid Alternatives such as Toyota Corolla, Camry, Matrix or Yaris make more sense.

This price-to-gas-savings issue shouldn't even be such a close call. Frustration over the comparatively modest benefits of current hybrids verses hybrid alternatives is the main driver behind the enthusiasm for the concept of the plug-in hybrid. Just three or four years ago, advocates of plug-in hybrids were a small band, operating on the fringes of the automotive mainstream. They hacked the battery packs of Toyota Priuses to create cars that could recharge from the electrical grid and run far longer in all-battery mode than a standard Prius on just battery power. Toyota effectively disowned the plug-in movement – and still isn't wild about it. Other manufacturers largely ignored the plug-in geeks.

That was then.
 
Last week, a conference on plug-ins sponsored by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, and Google.org, an arm of Internet giant Google, drew a standing room only crowd to a big hotel ballroom just a few blocks from Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Among the speakers was former Central Intelligence Agency director R. James Woolsey, who drives a plug-in Prius and is advising Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) Widespread and rapid adoption of plug-ins, he said, could help break the stranglehold of oil on the U.S. economy – and undermine al Qaeda by drying up the flow of dollars to the Middle East. Mr. Woolsey's vision is to develop cars that use carbon fiber for light weight strength, clean energy from the grid to recharge batteries, and ethanol for backup fuel to achieve the equivalent of 1,000 miles per gallon.

"We can, we should and we must destroy oil's monopoly!" Mr. Woolsey thundered, jabbing the lectern as the crowd applauded.

The conference was a dramatic demonstration that the plug-in insurgency is now going mainstream. But it also remains vulnerable. Speakers at the conference stressed how the technology needs Washington's help – in the form of subsidies, tax breaks, and mandates to adopt new standards for recharging infrastructure such as "smart" electric meters that can assess lower fees for replenishing batteries in the dead of night.

The Department of Energy did announce at the conference it would offer the Detroit Three $30 million over three years to help develop plug-in prototypes. But that's small change against the full costs of retooling for mass production of such vehicles.

As advocates of climate change action can testify, waiting for Washington to flash a green light can consign even the most stirring vision to the slow lane.

As Toyota struggles to keep up with booming demand for hybrid vehicles because it is unable to make enough batteries that are key parts in the hit "green" cars, this only further drives up the price on Hybrid Vehicles.

The crunch on battery production is likely to stay for the rest of the year, as new lines can't be added to boost production until next year, said Toyota Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada, who oversees production at Japan's top auto maker.

"Hybrids are selling so well we are doing all we can to increase production," he said. "We need new lines." Battery production is critical in determining how many hybrid vehicles Toyota can produce, Mr. Uchiyamada said at the company's Tokyo office.

Toyota leads the world's auto makers in hybrids sold at about 1.5 million vehicles since coming out with the first mass-produced hybrid Prius about a decade ago. Prius and other hybrids are soaring in popularity around the world amid surging gasoline prices, and other automakers are also rushing to produce hybrids. Hybrids also boast a green image in reducing emissions linked to global warming.

But Mr. Uchiyamada, who is spearheading a widespread effort at Toyota to make auto production greener, acknowledged such efforts hadn't yet extended to battery production because of the sheer problems in keeping up with demand.

"That has to settle down first," said Mr. Uchiyamada, an engineer who played a key role in the development of the Prius.

Toyota said last week its hybrid-battery joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic products, will begin producing next-generation lithium-ion batteries in 2009, and move into full-scale production in 2010. Toyota also said it is setting up a battery-research department later this month to develop an innovative battery that can outperform even that lithium-ion battery.

Toyota has also announced its third plant in Japan for producing current hybrid batteries, called nickel Lithium-ion batteries, now common in laptops, produce more power and are smaller than nickel batteries.