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The FT-HS at the Detroit Auto Show
Some sizzle for hybrid cars
aren’t cheap, and most hybrid models available are either high end or luxury models. In fact shopping for a luxury hybrid is a lot more interesting than shopping for a more cost-effective hybrid. There’s just more choices from more brands, with many more luxury hybrids, including plug-ins, on the way.
Unfortunately, the killer cheap hybrids are almost certainly coming, but just not yet, and possibly not for several more years. In the interim, sporty hybrids seem to be the next trend, and while that won’t significantly increase overall hybrid sales or market penetration, sporty hybrids could provide the kind of sizzle hybrids and electric vehicles need for serious market share.
It started with the . Of course, many quickly wanted to remove the word ’sporty’ from any description of the CR-Z, prompting Honda to begin developing an even more sporty version of CR-Z hybrid.
Likewise, Toyota has been conceptualizing sporty hybrids into near production-ready vehicles for some time, starting with , and the buzz around the CR-Z in Japan was enough to force Toyota to commit to challenging the CR-Z. And the Hybrid Synergy Drive will provide Toyota a very different hybrid toolbox than Honda to explore this new sporty niche, which should shape up into some interesting competition.
Moreover, that the Nissan/Renault and Daimler deal is almost certainly going to lead to a number of new sporty hybrids, such as the Nissan Z, the Mitsubishi Evo, and the Subaru WRX, largely because of increasing fuel economy standards.
So, will a whole new cult of hybrid fans soon drift into popular culture?
If anything, today’s youth is driven by technology. While a lot of technology can be placed into conventional vehicles, it just works so much better with hybrid and electric vehicles. More important, as many in the automotive press have blamed the disconnect between today’s kids and the love affair of the car, or the lack thereof, upon social networks and their ability to minimize the need for teenage transportation, few have pondered how this trend might be reversed.
Eventually, I’d bet an automaker will figure out how to turn this desire for networked, especially socially, connectivity into a new, completely out-of-the-box form of transportation, eventually.
Until then sporty hybrids could help renew American youth interest in the automobile, but a very different kind of automobile, and that could be the key to breaking the out-of-date and unsustainable mold of today’s American auto. And the sooner, the better.
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