Hybrid Theory
One of the many email newsletters I get is from Bush Greenwatch, and recently they sent a summary of a report (entitled "America Idles") released by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) shows that Americans will spend upwards of $5 billion extra on gasoline this year than due to poor automobile fuel economy policies. Here are some highlights from the report:

The best way to reduce our dependence on oil and save consumers money at the pump is to make cars go farther on a gallon of gas. Today, fuel economy is at a 24-year low of 20.8 miles per gallon (mpg). The National Academy of Sciences has stated that we already have the technology to make cars get 40 mpg. The big oil companies and automakers continue to fight this progress; in fact, while consumers are paying more at the pump, oil companies are recording huge profits. In 2004, the top ten oil companies enjoyed net profits of $100 billion, an increase of more than 30 percent from 2003. ---- In May 2001, when announcing his national energy strategy, President Bush had the opportunity to take a bold step forward and increase the fuel economy of cars and SUVs to 40 mpg by 2012. If he had, consumers and the U.S. economy already would be reaping the benefits as more efficient cars entered the market. In 2005 alone: The U.S. would be consuming 350,000 barrels of oil less per day. This is more than half of our current imports from Iraq. Consumers would be saving more than $5 billion at the gas pump, about $300 per new vehicle on the road. The U.S. would be offsetting 23.9 million tons of carbon dioxide, the primary global warming gas. This is the equivalent of removing four million average vehicles from the road. After 2005, as more cars meeting the new standards replaced older, less efficient cars, the benefits would have grown even larger. ---- In April 2005, the House once again passed an energy bill, H.R. 6, which does not include any provisions to increase fuel economy or otherwise reduce oil demand. Instead, the 2005 House energy bill provides the oil and gas industry with $3.2 billion in new tax breaks, or more than 40 percent of the total package. Meanwhile, the House dropped more than $3 billion in incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency in this version of the bill. According to a recent analysis by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), by 2025, U.S. imports of petroleum would increase by 85 percent under the Bush administration's preferred energy policy, encapsulated in the 2003 federal energy bill, which is nearly identical to the version passed by the House in April. EIA also found that the energy bill would actually slightly increase gas prices by 2010 compared with business as usual. The president himself admitted that the bill "wouldn't change the price at the pump today." Regardless, the president continues to push Congress to pass this energy bill.

The Christian Science Monitor recently covered the upswinging trend of hybrid cars; republished here via Alternet:

The growing enthusiasm for hybrids is rattling the faith of America's automakers, who have long believed that consumers don't care about fuel efficiency. And it has opened the door to a new theory that hybrid cars — long predicted to be a niche market and a way station to future hydrogen autos — are themselves the answer to revolutionize the fleet and trim the nation's surging dependence on foreign oil. For proponents of energy independence in the United States, the current level of dependency is worrisome. Last year, 56 percent of the nation's oil -- some 11 million barrels a day -- came from abroad. That's far more than the one-third share imported during the first oil crisis of the 1970s. And it's halfway to the two-thirds share projected for 2025, if nothing changes. [...] Most auto analysts still say no, since an enormous number of hybrids would have to be sold over more than a decade to have a real impact. Still, demand for hybrids, the Prius in particular, is so strong that customers are waiting weeks to get one. Some used 2004 Priuses are selling for thousands of dollars more than the cost of a new one. On Tuesday, Toyota announced it would begin building its first North American hybrid car in 2006 at its Georgetown, Ky., plant. The numbers are turning some heads. "I was a huge skeptic," says Walter McManus, an auto industry researcher at the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute in Ann Arbor. "But I've basically crossed over to the dark side. You can't argue with the market reaction." He estimates Toyota, Honda, and others will sell at least 1.2 million hybrid vehicles by 2010 -- about 7 percent of the US market - and possibly much higher. If all U.S. cars (not including light trucks) were Priuses today, the nation would save 15 percent more oil than it received from the Persian Gulf in 2002, writes energy-efficiency guru Amory Lovins in his recent book Winning the Oil Endgame. Of course, a sudden switch is virtually impossible, since there are roughly 235 million cars and light trucks on the road in the U.S. today. Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of those — some 200,000 — are hybrids. So the speed of the conversion will determine how much imported oil the nation might save.

So, while hybrids continue to gain popularity, it's going to take some time before they make much of a dent in fuel consumption patterns. A report on NPR's All Things Considered fleshes out that skepticism:

But hybrid sales will have to grow a lot more to make a significant difference in overall demand for gasoline. The California Energy Commission held a workshop today on how much gas the state's drivers will need over the next 20 years. One question the staff has wrestled with is how many of those drivers will be behind the wheels of hybrids or other fuel-efficient vehicles. As a strict economic calculation, the gasoline savings of a hybrid may not be worth the higher up-front cost. KG Deleep, who is a consultant to the commission says many of the early adopters of hybrids have had more in mind than just saving money on gasoline. "There's certainly an element of concern over the environment and greenhouse gas warming that's motivating people to buy it. And I also suspect that the war in Iraq and the situation in the Middle East plays a part in peoples' desire to conserve gasoline." Deleep thinks hybrids might ultimately account for about 15 percent of all car sales, with fuel-efficient diesels making up a similar fraction. Forecasters at JD Power and Associates are much less bullish about hybrids. They think sales will top out at about 3 percent of the market. Even if hybrid sales grow faster than that, it would take years to make much difference in the fuel consumption of the 230 million vehicles on the road. Walter McManus, who studies the auto industry at the University of Michigan, warns there's also a danger called "the rebound effect." "Suppose you had a fairy godmother who could wave a wand and improve the fuel economy of every existing vehicle by 10 percent. How much fuel would we consume? And if you said 10 percent less, that's not correct. Because what you've done is lower the cost of driving. And Americans drive more whenever the cost of driving is lower."