There's a lot to love about driving a hybrid. Aside from the warm fuzzy feelings associated with leaving less waste behind, many drivers will save money by owning a hybrid, even though the initial cost is more. The hybrid begins paying for itself even before you start to drive it.
Handouts
It starts with tax incentives, loan discounts, employer programs, all designed to encourage you and the rest of us to drive a hybrid or electric car. Federal incentives can be as much as $3,400. Local incentives can include money or simply perks that are nice to have, like traveling in the HOV lane whenever you want. Some green employers are giving out cash to employees who buy or lease hybrids. The Union Concerned Scientists' hybrid website, HybridCenter.org, has a full list of employee benefits for hybrid owners.
Discounts
Lenders and insurance companies are offering discounts to hybrid owners to sweeten the deal even more. Many credit unions offer .25 percent interest rate discount on hybrid vehicle loans. Car insurance companies like Farmers, Geico and Travelers will also give you a break just for owning a hybrid.
Gasoline
Obviously, a hybrid will use less gasoline, which now costs more than a gallon of milk in many places. Instead of filling up once or twice per week, you'll fill up once or twice a month. If you use a charging station at home, you might never need to fill up again. A hybrid only uses gasoline to generate electricity for the electric motor, so instead of running a car with gasoline, you're just running a generator to recharge your battery.
Repairs
Before you start screaming about how much hybrid batteries will cost, you should know that major advances in technology happening today will produce affordable batteries by the time you need to replace yours. Even if that were not the case, electric cars and hybrids have fewer parts than gasoline cars...a lot fewer. In fact, there's no transmission to break, oil to leak or gaskets to blow. You can't throw a rod because an electric car doesn't have one. You'll have to worry about tires, wheel bearings and similar moving parts, but the exhaust, fuel, and engine systems in your car today will be nonexistent tomorrow. Because of that, you're very likely to spend less on vehicle maintenance when you go hybrid.
As if that weren't enough, hybrid companies offer incredible warranties, covering three years or 36,000 miles warranty, plus an extended warranty on the battery. You'll also see three times the life on your brake pads because of the way hybrid braking works.
Retaining Value
Not that you'd ever want to sell a car that had all these benefits, but it helps to know that electric cars, because they are subject to slower wear and tear, keep their values longer than gasoline cars. Some comparisons have shown hybrid models reselling for $5,000 more than their gasoline counterparts do after five years of ownership.
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