[J.A.Sucker]

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JA or anyone,

The bit about hybrids being bad for the environment....leveling right?

If not, someone exlain plz.

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No leveling about the hybrids. Basically, PITTM's right - there is an enormous amount of energy that goes into making and properly disposing of the batteries. Batteries are horribly toxic and high-energy. This is not good. The batteries have an approximate lifetime of 100K miles. They are a fraud at this point. Of course, time may change this and one could argue that you are funding the development and improvement of battery/hybrid technology by buying them now. Then again, an efficient car or even a high-end diesel gets nearly the same mileage and most hybird owners get nowhere near the EPA MPG's quoted in real practice.

At a talk that I attended given by Nate Lewis (Caltech), probably the top electrochemist in the world and a global energy expert (adviser to many presidents), somebody asked about hybirds. He said that he wouldn't comment on the hybrids themselves (he was avoiding all political arguments in his talk, to his credit), but he would say that the additional energy required to MAKE a Prius (discounting the disposal, even), EXCEEDS THE AMOUNT OF ENERGY THAT A HUMMER H2 USES DURING 100K MILES OF DRIVING. That's pretty sick if you ask me.