They talk about Hybrid vehicles, but why still haven't they started making most vehicles hybrid?

they cost a couple thousand dollars more so consumers would whine

Because most vehicles that are demanded by the public of the US won't get that much better gas mileage using a hybrid. BTW, at highway speed (65 to 90 miles per hour), a hybrid is insignificantly better than a non-hybrid vehicle. In fact, some diesels get better gas mileage (though diesel does produce more ACTUAL pollutants from what I read).

The current EPA mileage estimates use a maximum speed of 60 miles per hour and an average speed of less than 55 miles per hour to estimate "highway" driving. That will change next year with the 2008 estimates (max speed of 70 miles per hour). The information already exists but this is the transition year. It also makes it so that the air conditioner is running during the test (previously the A/C was always off). From what I see on the government site, the hybrid MPG will be going WAY down.

The majority of hybrids on the market are small cars because larger cars are going to get low mileage because they are LARGE and HEAVY. You can't change that unless you make them more aerodynamic or lighter, no matter how you power them.

But the real reason more people don't buy hybrids is because they won't pay for their increased price (and that's according to my self-declared liberal friend in CA who was going to buy a hybrid "until he did the math")

Toyota makes several hybrids that no one buys. SUV's and Camry's, even a Lexus. The problem is that they have two power plants, one is electric and the other is gasoline. In the cities stop and go traffic the electric motor does the lions share of the work and some good mileage is received. On the highway when the gasoline engine is doing the work it gets the mileage that a SUV or sedan would get. Hence you are paying for twice as many engines/motors and getting the same mileage on the highway, which is where we do most of our traveling, as your neighbor next door.

When we finally get to using plug in electric vehicles for commuting and linear electric vehicles for long distance and heavy freight hauling we will have a real solution. It will take some re-education and some different thinking but we can do this.

There are many regular vehicles that are available in a hybrid version. But nobody wants to buy them. For example, I heard that Honda discontinued the hybrid version of the Accord due to lack of sales, although I still see in in the source.

So if you can make people buy them, more will be built. No way the manufacturers would discontinue them if they were flying off the showroom floor like the Prius is. It just seems like the people who like hybrids WANT to be seen driving an obviously hybrid car and not just quietly driving a regular car that is hybrid powered but otherwise looks just like all the other cars.

Let's look at the numbers. A friend bought a hybrid. He paid about $15,000 more than a pure gas car. At $3 per gallon of gasoline, that extra money could buy 5,000 gal of gas. Most cars today get at least 20 miles to the gallon, so we will use that number. 5,000 gal x 20 miles/gal = 100,000 miles. The purchaser of a pure gas car gets 100,000 free miles of driving as compared to the owner of a hybrid. The economics are just not there to have the average purchaser want the vehicle.

Because gas guzzling SUVs like the Dummer... err Hummer, Navigator, Excursion, and other similar wastes of metal and resources are still all the rage with people who feel the need to make up for something small...

ANYWAY.

The demand is not out there (yet) for the Hybrid cars.

Car manufacturers make the cars that people demand. Until more people demand hybrids, more will not be produced.

VW makes cars that aren't hybrids that get better fuel eonomy than the hybrids...

The hybrids are a scam... overpriced status symbols.

Essentially... rich hippies buy them so they can say "I'm greener (and richer) than you!"

They are too expensive. They are only selling now at to environmentalists. The savings in gas might never make up for the cost of the car. More people will always choose to buy what's cheaper than what's better for the world.

it cost too much too put them in every car. a majority of people will not not fork out that extra $10,000.00 to pay for the hybrid version of the same car that they want to get.