vLane Blog

Hummers and Hybrids: Where Do You Stand?

From Kirstie Parker, Featured Contributor
Posted on July 31, 2008

Filed under Technology

Americans are supposed to support having the freedom to make choices in life based on their value systems. Why doesn't it seem that way when it comes to the Hummer-Hybrid argument?

The hummer vs. hybrid topic gets everyone's blood boiling, even people who usually don’t get riled up about these kinds of things. So what’s the right thing to do? I mean, there’s got to be one right answer…right? Maybe the truth is that we need each other. The car companies definitely do.

The truth is that since the passage of Corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) in 1978, producing hybrids has allowed manufacturers to continue to produce SUVS. CAFE created a minimum fuel efficiency average for the entire product line of motor vehicles from a corporation, not a model-specific minimum as is in place in some other countries. The result is explained in this NY Times article: “You can guess what this means for hybrids. Each one becomes a free pass for its manufacturer to sell a few extra gas guzzlers…So every Toyota Highlander hybrid SUV begets a hulking Lexus SUV, and every Ford Escape…makes room for a Lincoln Navigator, which gets all of 12 miles a gallon. Instead of simply saving gas when you buy a hybrid, you're giving somebody else the right to use it.”

Hybrids aren't perfect. There are nasty environmental implications in the manufacturing of the batteries used in Prius Hybrids. That's not really the point. Your choice to drive a hummer or a hybrid will neither completely rescue nor destroy the earth. Humans have an unavoidable negative effect on the environment. The only way to eliminate the impact of our existence (ocean deadzones, air pollution, landfills full to the brim, Hummers and Hybrids) is to eliminate us.

So, Hummer owners shouldn't get too upset with flack about polluting the Earth, and Prius drivers shouldn’t get themselves in a tizzy over the massive SUVs zooming by in all their 10 mpg glory. Eventually nothing will run on petroleum-based fuel at all, and we’ll probably end up buzzing around on little floating mopeds and hovercrafts.

Here's my advice: be glad you live in a country that doesn’t tell you what kind of car you have to drive, but do your research, and figure out what the best choice is. Just don’t resent your neighbor for making a different one.

Read More:

• WTF Classifieds: Things to do with that $150K You've got Lying Around
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• Nine Ways to Counter the Effects of Road Rage

Kirstie Parker is a featured contributor for vLane.