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Dan Gurney once told me that a lot of people who own and operate racing cars—especially vintage racing cars—don’t appreciate what’s involved when they arbitrarily readjust something, or change some setting.

“They set off a whole domino effect of changes and adjustments that have to be made, and too many of them just don’t understand that.”

We have experienced something quite similar here at America’s first and only true digital car magazine. Reilly P. Brennan has announced that he wants to get an MBA, and our owner, Tom Martin, has invited him into the business side of our company to help him achieve that goal.

Chris Paukert, formerly our online editor, has been promoted to the editor’s chair. Now we need a replacement for Chris in the online operation. Our managing editor, Kevin Smith, decided to leave when Reilly left. He was replaced by former copy chief Carrie Roca. Laura Cowan, who was Number Two to Carrie in copy editing and fact-checking, now moves up to chief copy editor.

During all this, Leo Levine, an old friend and the author of the best book ever written about corporate automobile racing, Ford: The Dust and the Glory (details details), has joined us as Editor-at-Large. Stay tuned. As Dan Gurney said, more change is on the way.

Each time I drive a hybrid car—and I’ve now driven maybe two-dozen variations on the hybrid theme—I listen to the hybrid arguments pro and con, and wonder if there is a single incontrovertible truth about this fascinating automotive technology.

I wonder how many people outside the automotive magazine reader community have even the foggiest idea what a hybrid is, or does.

A hybrid—properly called a “hybrid electric vehicle”—is a vehicle whose powertrain marries two power sources, usually an internal combustion engine wedded to a combined electric motor and generator. A vehicle thus equipped does not need to be plugged into an electrical outlet to recharge its battery. The battery is recharged by the IC engine turning the generator, and by recovering the energy generated by the brakes. Fuel economy is improved when the IC engine shuts down periodically allowing the vehicle to operate on electric power only.

The Germans stoutly maintain that diesel engines are the real solution, and they build some very nice diesel engines, probably the best passenger car diesels in the world. Should the Germans produce a diesel hybrid—which they undoubtedly will—it ought to be a honey.

But I wonder how many diesels Germans would buy if they had to go to American truck stops to refill their Mercedes and BMWs? Standing in a half-inch of oily water on an eight-degree Fahrenheit morning holding an oil-slicked nozzle while your snazzy German car drinks its fill is no wife’s idea of fun with cars. And never mind what horrors will confront her if she’s foolish enough to visit the ladies’ room.

Until the retail end of the diesel business in America is sanitized, the diesel experience is best left to those knights of the road who wear cowboy boots and wifebeater T-shirts, and travel with perpetually annoyed Rottweilers in the sleeper cab. (In many cases the Rottweiler is actually a wife or girlfriend, but the distinction is blurry.)

I have no proof to support this statement, but I do believe that Americans will be more comfortable with hybrids than with diesels. Hybrids are dramatically different from the cars most Americans have known since they graduated from high school, but the act of driving one is perfectly ordinary. What they do, as they move quietly across the surface of our planet, though awesome in its sophistication, is dead-simple in operation. BMW’s iDrive is more challenging, for instance, than any of the hybrids I’ve driven.

Hybrids are clearly more economical to operate than the same cars with conventional internal combustion power. There are complaints that they are not as economical as the EPA’s test results proclaim them to be, but then, what is?

The EPA has been falling over backwards to inflate the MPG numbers of new cars for several decades, though why they think that this inane little distortion is worth the trouble is a mystery to millions of car owners who would be quite happy with the truth unadorned and undistorted.

A recent change in the reporting process makes the EPA numbers somewhat more credible, but they are still shaky as a useful source of “What should I buy?” information.

A hybrid drivetrain is much more complex than that of a conventional IC vehicle, and the cost for that complexity is passed along to the buyer. The anti-hybrid folks argue that those additional costs will never be recovered and their argument is probably valid.

Battery replacement costs are also something of a bugaboo, but so far, among all the hybrids sold in North America, battery replacement has not happened often enough to make even a tiny blip on the chart.

Over the years I have paid extra to get options and custom parts ranging from performance exhaust systems and exotic suspensions to special paint jobs and custom upholstery, none of which enhanced the value of that car at trade-in time. I knew that going in, but those things enhanced the pleasure I got from driving the car and I gladly paid the price. I feel the same way about the premium attached to hybrid technology.

I also enjoy having the benefits of electric power without the short range and constant need to recharge the battery that characterize the pure electric vehicle. Then there’s the dirty little truth about pure electric cars: i.e. the fossil-fuel-fired powerplant that creates the electricity for your clean electric car may very well be polluting my neighborhood.

http://magazine.windingroad.com/windingroad/200711web/?folio=17

Magazine Issue: Winding Road Issue 26