My first ride in a hybrid vehicle was on a cold and damp winter afternoon four years ago in Budapest traffic, returning from a photoshoot for my then-employer’s Christmas card, which depicted a twisted nativity scene (if you must, you can see yours truly in a skimpy lamb suit at this hyperlink). The then-new Lexus RX400h was the perfect vehicle for crawling along at 5 MPH: eerily silent, very comfortable and with the added touch of environmental relief. Nino Karotta and I watched in awe the cute tree icons we received from the car after every 50 kW or so produced, as if they were bonuses in a videogame.

It was not hard to imagine roaming the countryside in a Toyota hybrid and have trees sprouting in our wake, substituting biomass for a hybrid car’s actual emissions, which are made not of cellulose but of noxious smoke. Less smoke, but smoke nevertheless.

This was years before Toyota itself produced an advertisement for the Prius on this very theme, titled Harmony, which is by far the most hippy thing I’ve ever seen. YouTube’s robotic brain seems to agree: it’s throwing up all sorts of Woodstock footage as related video.

Toyota is now following up its ad with live flowerscapes made of 20,000 flowers each, planted by California’s freeways. I’m hoping they also plan on making a digital version of it, where a program in the Prius’s computer would light up a pixel representing a single flower after every 50 kW produced. Then, upon completion of the entire image of a thousand megawatts, you would get hit with an upgrade notice for a Lexus. You can’t re-plant the entire Amazon Basin with a single car, after all, can you?

Photo Credit: Toyota USA, Balázs Fenyő, Lexus

Seriously, we've driven all three and the new Prius makes these two cars look bad when it comes to fuel economy. Now a mid-size, it rivals the Fusion for space, practicality and driving dynamics, and starting at $21,000 it even gets close to the Insight on price. It does this all while boasting a 50 MPG combined fuel efficiency figure, something both its two main competitors can't get anywhere near. Having said that, we realize not everyone wants to risk looking like a whiny eco-celeb just to save some money on gas. So what about the other two choices? Let's find out. Yes friends, it's time for the Hybrid Car Wars.

As with our Muscle Car Wars comparison last week, we'll keep the game simple — add up the stars and the car at the end wins. Let's play.

Exterior Design

Insight: ***
Captures mainstream America's idea of a "hybrid" in a compact, appealing, well-detailed package. Unfortunately, this grey looks terrible in photos next to the Fusion's bright blue. View the Insight in person and the dumpiness in the rear 3/4 view isn't as apparent as it is in photos, mostly because the whole thing's just 4 1/2 feet tall.

Fusion Hybrid: ****
The 2010 Ford Fusion is probably the most handsome mid-size sedan on sale and the Hybrid's no different. Solid proportions, neat details and a shiny grille make it look more expensive than its $27,270 price tag.

Interior Design

Insight: ***
The interior doesn't feel as tight as it actually is thanks to a high ceiling and airy glass house. All the materials are cheap, but pull off the traditional Honda trick of looking good, being easy to use and feeling as if they'll last a long time. The sloping rear limits your ability to haul large items and the back seat is cramped. Not as practical as the cheaper Honda Fit.

Fusion Hybrid: ***
Very spec-sensitive. Check the box for leather and Nav and things are positively fancy, the fabric seats and Nav-less dash much less so. The rest is utterly conventional, if relatively roomy.

Acceleration

Insight: *
With a 0-60 time of 11-ish seconds, acceleration isn't the Insight's strong point. You can keep up with traffic, but you have to work hard to do so. The raucous sound and the CVT's constant revs makes the Insight feel slower than it is.

Fusion Hybrid: ***
Strong acceleration adds to the Fusion Hybrid's conventional driving experience. 0-60 MPH takes about 8.5 seconds, meaning you can actually overtake other cars, especially Honda Insights.

Braking

Honda Insight: ***
Where earlier hybrids had wooden brake pedals thanks to undeveloped regenerative braking systems, the Insight's is totally conventional to use. The soft suspension dives significantly, which can be a bit alarming since the brakes aren't immensely powerful.

Fusion Hybrid ****
What all hybrid brakes should be like, strong but easily modulated. That enables delicate brake use for batter charging at all possible opportunities.

Ride

Insight: *
Very harsh, yet also wobbly. It's like normal suspension in reverse; small bumps are met with harsh response, while large ones send the Insight bouncing along like a Jello mold.

Fusion Hybrid: ****
Feels like a much more expensive car, the ride is cushy yet controlled, isolating occupants from all sorts of bad surfaces.

Handling

Insight: **
This, more than anything else, defines the Insight's character. Objectively, the handling is pathetic, feeling overwhelmed as it yaws alarmingly through everyday challenges like highway off ramps and around minor corners. Having said that, it's fun, involving and challenging to try and hustle something with such low limits, turning every commute into an adventure. Think worn out ‘80s hatchback, but with stability control and you won't be far off.

Fusion Hybrid: ***
Like the regular Fusion, the Hybrid is a competent handler, if not all that involving. Try pushing things and you're met with terminal understeer, but its limits of adhesion, unlike the Insight, lie beyond the realm of the everyday.

Gearbox

Insight: *
As intrusive and annoying as a CVT could possibly be, it's strangely fitted with a "Sport" mode and wheel-mounted paddles that don't do an awful lot beyond raising the cabin's already loud noise level.

Fusion Hybrid: ***
In contrast, the Fusion's CVT is utterly unremarkable. You'll never notice it once you put it in "Drive."

Audio

Insight: **
The optional 6-speaker 160-watt audio system incorporated into the Nav unit is easy to use, but sounds tinny. It adds to all the noise coming from the road and engine rather than drowning those out.

Fusion Hybrid: ***
The base stereo is weak and the LCD interface isn't great. Start ticking options and you can get a really good Sony 12-speaker system and Sirius radio.

Toys

Insight: ****
Well, the whole car kind of feels like a toy, but is also comes with a seriously informative set of gauges that enable drivers to understand how to drive efficiently. The speedometer, which hovers in your peripheral vision, glows dark green when you're behaving and fades to dark blue when you're not. That's much more immediate than Ford's system. Add to that the Gameboy graphics that give you ridiculous medals for fuel-efficient driving and an "Eco" button that smooths out the peaks and troughs of power input to boost efficiency and frugal drivers have all the tools they need to save money.

Fusion Hybrid: *****
If you think the Insight's got some cool gauges, you'll be floored by the slick graphics and massive level of information available in the Fusion. Easily the best-looking gauges in the industry, Ford's SmartGauge with EcoGuide system redefines a driver's interaction with the car by showing you how to maximize energy recovery during regenerative braking, enabling you to maintain EV mode up to 47mph with a display showing the amount of throttle available in that mode. There's so much here it can be overwhelming and very distracting, but Ford's thought of that too, allowing you to switch through four levels of information.

Fuel Economy

Honda Insight: ***
Hit or miss. The EPA numbers are 40 MPG city, 43 MPG highway, 41 MPG combined. We averaged 37 MPG over a week of mostly city driving. Hypermilers can get figures exceeding 60 MPG over mixed routes. So which is it? Sadly, in our hands, the fuel economy just isn't impressive for such a compromised car. Your results may vary.

Fusion Hybrid: ****
We averaged 38.5 MPG over a week of mixed highway and city driving in the Fusion Hybrid. For a relatively large car that's pretty fast and pretty luxurious, that's really good. Official EPA numbers are nearly identical to the Insight's: 41 MPG city, 36 MPG highway, 39 MPG combined, but the record-breaking fuel economy we achieved when we hypermiled the Fusion Hybrid in LA was only 43.8 MPG.

Value

Honda Insight: ****
It depends on how you look at it. The Insight offers decent fuel economy in an unpractical package resulting in a fairly unimpressive value proposition. At $19,800 it is, however, the cheapest hybrid car on the market, meaning it lowers the barrier of entry into the exciting world of hybrid ownership. Believe it or not, that actually matters to some people. Although we'd stick with the much more practical, better-to-drive 2009 Honda Fit, which starts at $14,750 and manages 27 MPG city and 33 MPG highway, we do have to admit, as far as Hybrids go, this one's got the win.

Fusion Hybrid: **
An impressive car for a reasonable price, but the base-spec Fusion S starts at $19,270 and returns 25 MPG combined. Even though the Fusion Hybrid brings with it all the SEL options, $27,270 creates an $8,000 premium that you'll never make up in fuel savings.

Overall

Honda Insight
Average score: 2.5
Living up to every negative hybrid stereotype ever, the Insight asks you to make enormous sacrifices in the driving experience and practicality to achieve fuel mileage that just isn't all that impressive for a car this small. It'd make a pretty decent first car or first new car, but the Fit would make a much better one.

Ford Fusion Hybrid
Average score: 3.5
Ford's Fusion hybrid delivers a spacious, technologically-advanced car asking you to make no sacrifices to achieve similar fuel economy to the Insight. Well, except the price, which is understandably a bit more than its no-batteries brethren. The most complete hybrid we'd driven, well, until we drove the 50 MPG 2010 Toyota Prius, that is.

If our sources at Green Hybrid are correct, this is a teaser for the upcoming 2010 Toyota Prius. No, really. Of course, we'd be surprised if anybody actually felt any sensation of anticipation from this photo. Who knew Toyota could release an even worse teaser than the first one? Although this shot does finally confirm speculation at least one part of the vehicle is capable of being opened and closed. Fascinating. We're going to take a nap now.

[via GreenHybrid]

The new Toyota Prius was caught this morning driving again through the streets of San Francisco. We've seen the 2011 Toyota Prius testing in SF before, but never with such camera phone graininess. See if you can glean anything from this new shot. We know we can't.

(Thanks Nick!)

A lot of people can’t wait to try [the plug-in Prius], so it’s understandable that one of our dealers created some confusion recently by taking deposits on future Prius plug-in hybrids.

Magnussen’s Toyota in Palo Alto, California was doing what we’ve always encouraged our dealers to do...to listen carefully to their customers and try to meet their needs. Being so close to Silicon Valley, the dealership was getting lots of requests from customers who wanted to buy a plug-in Prius. And since the dealership had confidence Toyota would eventually deliver a great vehicle, they thought it would be a good idea to take deposits and make customers happy.

So, while we applaud Magnuessen’s excitement about our future Prius plug-in, we want to be clear that we have not announced a timetable for retail sales.

Jalopnik Snap Judgment: Since one or two of us have done tours of duty in the hallowed halls of America's car dealerships, we know that cash money is God there. Faced with customers demanding something that didn't exist, but that the dealer knew would most likely soon exist, Magnussen's did what any money-grubbing auto retailer would have done: they charged folks to get on "the list." Shady? Yeah. Surprising? Not in the least. It's common knowledge that a customer who has left a deposit on something, no matter how small, is much more likely to return to complete the transaction — any transaction. The simple rule of thumb to follow is "don't put a deposit on something that doesn't yet exist." Even...or especially...at a car dealership. Incidentally, Magnussen's also agreed to return all customer deposits for plug-in Priuses, but we wonder how much thumb-twisting on Toyota's part was involved before they agreed to relinquish their precious cash. [Toyota Open Road Blog]

If you're interested in something a bit more modern, the system is designed to work with an upgrade to lithium iron phosphate batteries too. And if you want to pump juice into those batteries using nothing but the sun, you might want to bolt on some solar panels. Us? We'd still rather have a VW Golf Twin Drive. [GreenCarCongress]

Jalopnik Snap Judgment: PickupTrucks.com speculates the truck Raser plans to convert is a Chevy Silverado, mostly due to the drivetrain's similarities to the Chevy Volt. We're inclined to agree with our good buddy Mike Levine over there if only for the reason that the internal drawings look just like a Silverado. We've also got to admit, a full-size truck capable of 100 MPG, even if they only make a few of them at a very high price, would be an impressive proof-of-concept for investors or OEMs. Hint, Hint.

[Pickuptrucks.com]

Not surprisingly, technologies not readily available in the U.S. didn't fare well on the study. For example, clean diesel engines barely registered a blip, in large part because they're just entering the market. Said Mike Marshall, director of the study: "The mere fact that they'll be in the marketplace is going to raise the awareness level of clean diesel, and I think that will begin to crack some of these wrong perceptions of what diesel is today."

While clean diesel is already chosen by a majority of European buyers, it remains to be seen whether economies of scale allow it to be implemented in the States at a lower price premium than that found on hybrids; new offerings from VW, Mercedes, and even Honda in the next 12 months should provide some insight into diesel pricing strategy. Additionally, as hybrid sales numbers rise, the same economies of scale should allow prices to fall. But, for either to happen, first some folks have to pony up the premium. Chicken, meet egg.
[Automotive News (Sub. Req.)]

First off, there was an overall drop in vehicle sales in the United States — that's obviously going to affect sales of the largest fuel-suckers first, but the current economic situation affects anyone looking to buy right now, even in the hybrid marketplace. But the biggest factor isn't the issue of demand, it's supply. Toyota decided to only create about 175,000 Prii a year and is sticking to that number — mostly because their suppliers don't have the ability to quickly add capacity. That means despite the increase in demand, there just aren't any more to buy. The Camry Hybrid's seen a sales drop as well, because of this same supplier issue.

Comically, the biggest winner for the month were Saturn's hybrids — the Vue crossover and Auru sedan. Aura sales were up an astonishing 800%! Obviously since the Vue is a larger vehicle, it only saw a month-to-month increase of 750%. Unfortunately, due to some of their own serious supply issues, like battery leakage problems, 800% only translates to total monthly sales of 36 and 750% only translates to another limp volume number. Again, a supply issue.

Other hybrids also did reasonably well, including a 100.6% month-over-month increase in sales for the Nissan Altima Hybrid and a 3.5% year-over-year increase for the Civic Hybrid. But given that hybrid sales in the US for 2008 total only 155,958 vehicles, minor fluctuations make a big impact on monthly results. Overall, although hybrid sales are up 4.5% compared to the first five months of 2007, if neither Toyota or GM are able to get their supplier issues licked, we're not expecting it to start raining hybrids anytime soon. [WSJ, HybridCars.com]

The new motor is a 3.3-liter V8 fitted with twin turbos. Combined with a 100kW electric motor, the car has 630 HP readily available. The juice for the electric motor is charged up by regenerative braking technology. We're not sure what Gumpert's plans are for any possible road version of this setup, but we bet even Al Gore would want one.
[World Car Fans]

The gasoline engine wasn't your typical internal-combustion mill, but rather a jet-tastic gas-turbine engine. That spinning turbine would wind up an electric generator, which would charge up the batteries. The juice stored in the batteries would be used by electric motors that sent power to the wheels. So this setup is actually more like the proposed system of the Chevy Volt, rather than a modern Toyota hybrid.
[via Japanese Nostalgic Car, Image Credit: Toyota]

Of course, hybrid sales are still down compared to December 2007, but that's a common yearly occurrence. When you take a closer look at the numbers you see that the more luxurious hybrids are seeing a decrease in sales as compared to their more pedestrian cousins. The Ford Escape sales were up 24.7% compared to last January, while the Mercury Mariner was down 10.6% over the same period. The Toyota Highlander's sales grew 18.4% while the Lexus RX400h dropped by 2.7%. The Toyota Prius and Camry both had a great January, increasing 37.1% and 33.9%, respectively. The Lexus brand GS450h saw a decrease of 61.7%.

There are other factors to consider here. Certainly gas prices, advertising and decreasing awareness play into car sales (for instance, Honda is no longer selling actively selling Hybrid Accords). There's no longer a hybrid tax credit for Toyotas as they've exceeded their sales cap.

But it looks as though the recession is having an impact on hybrid buyers, who are already paying a premium over the gas-only alternatives and might not want to pay a premium on top of that to get the "luxury" edition. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out given that Hybrid Escalade is going to cost significantly more than a Yukon Hybrid. It'll also be interesting to see if this impacts the upper reaches of the market, such as the upcoming Fisker Karma Hybrid Sedan.

[HybridCars.com]

• Volvo is looking at this car to hit the streets in 2015, but it won't be the first hybrid Volvo plans on releasing — but they're keeping what the first one will be a secret until later.
  
• There's four electric motors — one at each wheel.
  
• This emphasizes safety as they've moved the motors away from the front of the car and to the wheels. By not having the engine in the front, it allows for Volvo to use the front for more crash-protection.
  
• Also, despite having an engine, it has no driveshaft.
  
• Full recharge of the batteries will take three hours, but the car should be drivable on an hour or less.
  

EDF and Toyota announce European technology partnership for Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles EDF and Toyota have today announced a new technology partnership to evaluate Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles (PHV) in Europe. The objective is to develop practical solutions for the commercialisation of Toyota's prototype vehicle technology, which can further reduce the environmental impact of vehicles especially in urban areas. Under the joint agreement, a small number of PHVs will be integrated into EDF's fleet and will be tested on public roads in France under every-day driving conditions. Road trials of the PHV will commence in France in the autumn and may be expanded to other European countries in the future. The vehicles use Toyota's hybrid technology but with the added benefit that their batteries can be recharged using a standard electrical plug. Toyota's PHV technology combines a gasoline engine with an electric motor and a battery which can be charged in two ways: either whilst the vehicle is driving and by recovering energy otherwise lost during braking, or by connecting the vehicle to an electric supply source at home, work or at a public charging station. For short journeys, a PHV would rely more on electric power, offering significant reductions in CO2 emissions through reduced consumption of fossil fuels. For longer distances, it would switch to a combined electric/gasoline mode. EDF and Toyota have also developed an innovative charging and invoicing system, equipped in each of the test vehicles. This system is compatible with a new generation of public charging stations, which aim to make electric power more accessible on public roads and car parks and to reduce the cost to the customer. For more than 40 years, EDF has acted to promote the use of electricity for transport and rechargeable vehicles, in-line with its strategy of sustainable development. Mr Pierre Gadonneix, President and CEO of EDF said: "I am delighted by this partnership between EDF and Toyota on a new generation of vehicles. This innovation is a promising move towards acceptance of electricity as a competitive and ecologically-viable source of energy for European motorists. It strives to reconcile the challenges of individual mobility, economic growth and environmental impacts". "This new collaboration marks an important milestone in advancing global capability in the area of alternative fuel sources for transport, which we believe are critical to society's future," said Mr. Masatami Takimoto, Executive Vice-President of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC). "We are proud to partner such a leading European energy supplier as EDF, with whom we share a common vision towards sustainable mobility."

The EDF Group, one of the leaders in the energy market in Europe, is an energy specialist that is active in
all the businesses of electricity: production, transport, distribution, energy supply and trading. The Group is the leading electricity producer in Europe. In France, it has mainly nuclear and hydraulic production facilities where 95% of the electricity output involves no CO2 emissions. EDF operates over 1,200,000 km of low and medium voltage overhead and underground electricity lines and around 100,000 km of high and very high voltage networks. The Group is involved in supplying energy and services to close to 38 million customers around the world, including more than 28 million in France. The Group generated consolidated sales of € 58.9 billion in 2006, of which 42 % were generated in Europe excluding France. Net income (Group share) stood at € 5.6 billion, with net income from ordinary operations at € 4.2 billion. EDF is listed on the Paris Stock Exchange and is a member of the CAC 40 index.

Toyota is one of the leading car manufacturers in Europe, with eight manufacturing plants across the
continent including Valenciennes in France. The company is committed to reducing the impact of the
automobile on the environment at all stages of the product's life-cycle; design, production use and disposal.

2007 marks ten years of hybrid leadership for Toyota since the launch of its first mass-produced hybrid
vehicle in 1997. Having sold over one million hybrid units worldwide and over 100,000 in Europe, the company now aims to sell one million hybrid units a year globally in the early 2010s.