Is the Hybrid really the solution?

[340Cuda]

My wife drives a 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid. Its a SUV not quite a big as a Tahoe with three rows of seats. She purchased it new when her 1999 300M was getting long in the tooth.

It was the only car she could find that could meet her requirements of something that was not as low as the Chrysler, she liked driving and got better fuel mileage than the 300M.

Since the battery is typically never either fully charged or fully discharged, in the real world battery life appears to be very good with 200,000 miles plus reported.

The car accelerates very well, if you add up the horsepower of the three electric engines and the gas engine I think its over 400 hp although the computer does not let you use that much, I think Toyota rates the package at over 300hp.

It gets better mileage in town than on the road and better mileage in the spring and fall. This is because the gas engine runs more in the winter and the AC (which is electric) drains the 400v battery more when the gas engine is off. Mileage in town ranges from around 23 to 27. On the road around 22. When we take it to Colorado in the summer it does well in the mountains as it will top the batteries off going down the passes.

Over all its a very interesting car that has served us well. What will we replace it with? Hard to say as that will be many years off and as mentioned earlier there could be many different choices.

Bill