Affordability is a big problem with a lot of new technology, and certainly early-adopters accept a certain level of financial pain for the benefit of having the “cool new thing” or “for the cause” of helping establish a new technology as a common product.

Since cool new products are often failures, I’m hesitant to want to spend tax money on rebates for them. If special interests really believe that these cars will save the world, then they can fund the rebates with money they raise themselves. If a technology is important enough, it’s merits will demonstrate themselves, and there is no need for the government to prop up ideas with the hope that they will be the magical solution (hybrid cars, decades of ethanol production, Major League Baseball, etc)

For now, from a review of pure wallet cash flow, as a cash-strapped conservationist, you’re probably better off getting a non-hybrid and spending some of the money you’re saving on other conservationally-minded projects.

For instance, a new Prius will run you something like $21,760, but a new Corolla will be $15,865 – a difference of $5,895.

Driving 15K miles per year, the real-world gas prices look like $1,211/yr for the Prius and $1,925/yr for the Corolla – a difference of $714/yr. (at $3.72/gal for gas).

At that rate, it takes around 8.25 years to make up in gas savings what you lay out in the initial price of the car. My assumption is that maintenance for a Prius is also more expensive than for a Corolla.

Since a modern consumer is not likely to keep a car for over 8 years ( although a long life-cycle of a product is probably the best thing it can contribute to conservation ), you’re better off saving your money, and investing in a solar-power start-up or a nuclear power bond issue.

With any luck, by the time you want to replace your car in 3-4 years, you will have more savings and even more efficient cars to choose from as efficiency technology trickles down from the gadget cars into the common cars.

-AI

No one thing is going to do the trick, and we’ll need bridge technologies even if renewables pan out. Right now, fission is the best and most environmentally responsible option, despite its drawbacks.

In the US, we get the vast bulk of our power from coal-fired plants.
Each year, these coal plants emit more radioactive isotopes into the air than our entire nuclear power industry uses (see this excellent discussion of the issue). Every coal plant replaced by a fission plant would reduce the consumption of nuclear fuels—not to mention storing that waste instead of simply spewing it into the environment!

At the same time we—and even more the developing world—will also need oil for the foreseeable future, so innovative ways to recover oil and minimize environmental impact need to be promoted. And that means working with, not against, Big Oil.