To Buy or Not to Buy a Hybrid...

That's a debate that's arisen among a few political bloggers. Matthew Yglesias at TAPPED fired the first shot by pointing to a study by Edmonds claiming that buying a hybrid isn't necessarily the smart economic move that some believe. Ezra Klein fired back by disputing some of the assumptions in the Edmonds' report. I think he's right in asserting that "The point is that those seeking to switch to hybrid vehicles are likely looking for a radical move to fuel efficiency after getting socked by high gas prices, not trying to save a few extra cents by making jumping from a fuel efficient economy car to another, more fuel efficient economy car." I know that my wife and I would've loved to buy a Prius when car shopping last summer, but had to settle on a Hyundai Accent because of the price. We were still happy with the Accent's 35mpg. Finally, Nick Beaudrot from Politics and War weighed in with some other assumptions in the Edmonds study, and some pretty thorough calculations that led him to conclude that in most cases, the hybrid is the better buy. What can I add? Well, not much, but I'm awfully happy to see the issue of energy conservation arising in the political blogosphere...

Technorati tags: hybrid, fuel efficiency, economics