There's Hope in Hybrids.

• Author: Dale, Jeff

New cars that use both gasoline and electricity just may be the answer to lowering gas consumption and pollution.

Representative Elizabeth Watson of Maine often receives honks of appreciation, thumbs up from pedestrians and smiles at stoplights as she makes her way to the capitol every day. People are responding to the car she drives--a sleek, two-seat Honda Insight that looks like it might just belong to the future. The onlookers who dole out the encouragement might be even more impressed if they knew what was under the hood. It's a hybrid engine that is powered by gasoline and electricity and can be driven up to 700 miles between trips to the pump.

"People get excited about it, especially when they hear I'm getting 65 miles per gallon in town and 70 mpg on the highway," says Watson. "From my experience, the public is really hungry for new technologies and opportunities to contribute to clean air."

"They always ask me 'Where do you plug it in?"' she says. "Everyone's surprised to learn that I don't have to. The gasoline charges the electric battery as I drive. There is no external charging mechanism.

Indeed, this may be the key to the "real world" application of hybrid technology. The fact that hybrids reap some of the benefits of an electric motor while depending on nothing more than the traditional gasoline system for refueling gives them an edge over other promising alternative fuels.

For many years, the complaint about straight electric vehicles has been inconvenience and lack of performance. No one should overlook the fact that electric vehicles produce zero pollution from the tailpipe. But critics have argued that the electric batteries simply do not store enough energy to power the vehicles for more than 80 or 100 miles.

Recharging with an electrical hookup must be performed frequently and long distance travel is troublesome. How many "electric vehicle charge stations" did you see along the interstate on your last family vacation? On top of this, cold weather is known to zap the strength from batteries creating additional uncertainty and headaches.

Although hybrids are not a perfect substitute for electric vehicles, they cannot be labeled as inconvenient or lacking in performance. The Toyota Prius (Toyota is the only other company with a hybrid for sale) registers top speeds of 105 mph. And by all accounts, the combined power of the traditional gasoline engine with the electric battery motor creates a terrific boost in periods of high acceleration.

"It has plenty of zip. You really feel a surge of power in the passing lane," says Representative Watson.

The arrival of the quasi-electric car comes not a moment too soon, according to energy conservationists and clean air advocates. The average miles per gallon for new vehicles roiling off the production lines has dropped steadily for nearly 20 years and is now at its lowest point since the early 1980s.

The federal government sets the corporate average fuel economy standard (CAFE), which is the average mpg target, that each automaker must achieve for its entire fleet of vehicles. This standard has not changed since 1985, then set at 27.5 mpg for cars and 20.7 mpg for passenger trucks and vans. In 1999, the average mpg for all new vehicles was 23.8 mpg.

In times of such technological advance, why has automobile fuel economy been tanking for nearly two decades? A lot of it has to do with the type of vehicles people are buying. Most sports utility vehicles get between 13 and 18 mpg. Pickup trucks and minivans also have grown dramatically in popularity over the last few decades and their, gas mileage isn't much better.

The fuel economy issue has become magnified over the last year because of climbing gasoline prices. "Improved gas mileage is something the public wants," says Art Garner, Honda spokesman. "Hybrids like our Insight will instantly double fuel efficiency over a lot of the vehicles...