Gas-electric hybrid cars are hot right now, especially in the cities, where everyone from environmentally conscious celebrities to technology loving super geeks are driving them. Toyota’s new gas-electric hybrid, called the Prius, sold 5,230 last month, and will probably sell
Gas-electric hybrid cars are hot right now, especially in the cities, where everyone from environmentally conscious celebrities to technology loving super geeks are driving them. Toyota’s new gas-electric hybrid, called the Prius, sold 5,230 last month, and will probably sell 45,000 this year.
And Kauaians love them as much as anyone. There have been some 20 Prius sold so far this year on Kaua‘i, and, like Prius fans everywhere, the popularity of the car has another 20 hopeful Kaua‘i buyers sitting on a waiting list, some since February.
“They’re selling like hotcakes,” said Pat Iwasaki, assistant manager at Kaua‘i Toyota.
The first shipment of cars came and went, Iwasaki said. Today, they’ve got orders in for 20 more, backlogged for eight months, and chances are good that, should a rogue shipment of Prius somehow find their way to Kaua‘i by mistake, people would be fighting to get at them.
Meanwhile, across the way at King Auto Center, the new Honda Civic hybrid is still available – but not for long.
They’ve got three left, and have sold about 20 so far this year.
While not as popular as the Prius, the Civic, which maintains its forebearer’s classic lines, hints little at being a hybrid and costs about the same as a Prius.
Both cars are so “normal” looking that, while there are at least 40 on Kaua‘i’s roads, you’ll probably never notice them. And that’s exactly the way the marketers want it.
According to industry executives, the only way to sell a hybrid is to not go too far with styling, but rather, to make it look somewhat like a regular car.
Indeed, both the Prius and the Civic look remarkably stoic compared to the first hybrid, Honda’s Insight, which had the super-sleek lines of a futuristic car, but was far less well-recieved than the Prius or the Civic, especially here on Kauai. But that’s changed now that the Prius, arguably the bolder of the new breed, is on island. “People really love this car,” Iwasaki said.
It comes nowhere close to the Honda Insight, which in 2000, was a sleek eye-opener and only the boldest dared buy it. Today, it’s become a classic and not even King Auto carries the Insight anymore. Instead, they’re focusing on the less flashy, but equally gasstingy, Civic.
Into the game is Ford Motor Co., which is debuting the first U.S.-produced version, and Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. are expanding their offerings. What drives people to buy the new hybrid cars? Is it style? Is it gas mileage? Is it the technology? It’s all in the head, say sociologists, who look to America’s long history of car-buying behavior. We are driven by “status” symbols and conversation pieces.
At the moment, buyers don’t have much choice, so it’s not style alone. But collectively – factoring in technology, style and mileage – the hybrids are the hot ticket across the country, especially in larger cities, where gas prices are typically higher, and the unique qualities of the hybrid work splendidly. The cars have small 1.5 liter gas engines, which kick in approximately 75 horsepower, and the electric engines supply another 70 or so horsepower. Combined, the two produce enough punch to push a car up Oahu’s steep hills, or Kaua‘i’s Waimea Canyon Drive. But it’s on the downside where the hybrid makes it statement.
It recharges the batteries on the downside, supplying enough juice to do it all again. And at 60-miles per gallon, more and more Kaua‘ians are opting for the hybrid. “I absolutely love my hybrid,” said Clark Robinson, a local salesperson and one of the first in the state to buy a hybrid. “My car has the lowest air-resistence of any production car on the road.”
And while doing 70 miles per hour around tight turns might not appeal to the average driver, for Robinson, it’s the sheer thrill of this daily brush against the soundbarrier that keeps him behind the wheel of his Honda hybrid. Even Hollywood celebrities have taken to hybrids, Larry David, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz among them. Google Inc. founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page – who have enough money to buy Mars – drive a $21,000 to $24,000 Prius. Perhaps it’s the fact that the Sierra Club, with its EPA-rated 60 miles per gallon in city driving, endorses the car. Soon Toyota, Honda and even GM will be coming out with hybrid trucks and SUVs, and they’ll all be available on Kaua‘i.
But don’t count on every Kaua‘i car dealer to supply hybrids. Out here on rural Kaua‘i, say most car dealers, big power is what they’re banking on.
“We continue to pound out huge trucks with big engines,” said Mike Camara, general sales manager with Kuhio Motors.
“Regardless of the price of gas, even if it goes for five dollars a gallon, sales for full-size trucks and SUVs are up. The hybrid craze hasn’t hit us yet.”
Kuhio carries the Nissan brand of cars, along with Hyundai and the full line of General Motors offerings. They’ve had absolutely no inquires for hybrids from their horsepowerloving clients, Camara said.
“Our trucks alone account for probably more than 40 percent of sales,” Camara said. “On Kaua‘i, people are really into trucks, and they’ll always be into trucks. If a dealer doesn’t have powerful trucks, they won’t make it here.”
Nearly 68 percent of new cars sold on Kauai so far this year were light trucks and SUVs. That’s not stopping Kaua‘i Toyota and King Auto Center from getting into the game early.
The future for them and everyone, for that matter, will have to include hybrids. Indeed, one day soon, we may be filling up at the pump, only instead of pumping gas, we could be pumping hydrogen into electric-hydrogen hybrids.
Impossible, you say? Consider that the city and county of Honolulu and the University of Hawai’i earlier this year joined with other agencies to create a “power park” in Kapolei.
It will provide Kapolei Hale with electricity from a hydrogen generator and an array of photovoltaic panels, and a charging station for electric vehicles. A hydrogen fueling station for vehicles powered by fuel cells is also planned.
And as Kaua‘i and the state look forward to a future filled with alternative fuels, including water, wind and ethanol, hydrogen could be just one more weapon in Hawaii’s arsenal against its dependence on oil imports.
Hawaii has long a long history of hydrogen. Back in 1980, Senator Spark Matsunaga introduced hydrogen legislation and, in 1983, the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute was founded to organize hydrogen research.
By 1996, the HNEI was running three of the nation’s top eight hydrogen projects.
UH Chemist Craig Jensen is one of the first in the world to discover a way to store hydrogen in a solid fuel cell instead of as a gas. Funded by the US Department of Energy, Jensen’s work with metal hydrides – a metal that safely stores hydrogen, sponge-like instead of as a gas – was well received.
Instead, however, the US auto industry, in its impatient pursuit of an alternatively powered auto, focused instead on the more near-term use of hydrogen as a gas to be stored in tanks under enormous pressure.
But because the pressurized hydrogen was fiercely volatile, hydrogen fueld cars remained an expensive dream – until today. The hydrogen-powered car industry is again using hydrides and Jensen’s research is again taking centerstage.
Now, auto manufactures are looking for ways to produce hydrogen cheaply and store it safely until it can be pumped into a fuel cell.
And that means that hydrogen cars could be the next generation of cool, hip hybrid autos to grace America’s – and Kaua‘i’s – showrooms.
Phil Hayworth, Business Editor, can be reached at 245- 3681 (ext. 251) and phayworth@pulitzer.net
