(that is not towed behind a bike, though those are neat in their place too…)

Chances are you've noticed them out there on the streets of Portland – the new generation of eco-cars is quickly turning into a baby boom-like explosion of Priuses, SmartCars, and biodiesel-burning VWs.  You might have even seen a few cars on the road that looked like nothing special at first glance, until you notice the slightly misshapen trunk and bumper, then you look – and yes, there it is – that tiny little “Hybrid” sign right next to the make and model name, telling you that though this may look like the ordinary mid-size SUV you see chewing up the desert Southwest in the commercial, this one is actually the marginally more fuel-efficient version of the same landscape-eating machine.  The good news here is that you can buy an SUV or a large car that gets decent mileage and has room for your kids, your neighbor's kids, and the dog you plan to adopt this fall.

If you haven't done any homework on the environmental impacts of various types of automobiles, relax – you can mooch off the by-product of my minor obsession.  The current stars of the eco-car arena are the hybrids.  These vehicles still use gasoline, but they use it much more efficiently than conventional gasoline-powered cars.  To achieve this, these vehicles have a special electricity generator built into the brakes.  Normally, when you stop a car, all of the energy of that momentum you had is lost.  With hybrids, some of that energy is captured as electricity and stored in a large battery.  The car taps this electricity to boost the power supplied by burning gasoline, which results in better mileage.  The additional technology also result in higher prices for the cars, especially when compared with some of the other gas-efficient conventional cars out there.

For example, the Toyota Prius, the base model of which starts around $22,000 and is very difficult to hot-wire, gets about 45 miles per gallon in city driving.  Compare that to our family car, a small sedan that gets about 30 mpg in the city (no slacker by many environmental standards), costs about $9,000 less, and looks nothing like the Delorian in “Back to the Future.”  Much as we might like to be driving the most efficient hybrid out there, we have to take into account the fact that with our driving habits we'd probably need to motor around in the hybrid for about 35 years before we realized any financial savings over the conventional small sedan.

All of which leads me to think that if we just went out and bought the first bargain Humvee or surplus military assault vehicle we found, it would leave plenty of time for plotting how to get all of our family's errands for the week done using one 3.6 mile trip… This might make the whole green thing a wash.  Still, I think we'll keep looking toward when we can buy a car that's in our price range, has some space, and hopefully will still be super-efficient. The future of our children's home, and yes, the future riding comfort of the dog we haven't yet adopted, are too important not to.

Chris Stockner's family currently shares a 4 year-old Honda Civic.  They will almost certainly be able to purchase a gently used hybrid once the technology becomes obsolete.