Hybrid Spotting

I sometimes wonder how close to mainstream America I live.

I work in high tech, I drive a Prius and commute 3 hours a day (including by electric train -- BART) to San Francisco.

When I bought my Prius in 2002 I was lucky to see 1 hybrid a week. It was always fun to wave at the other hybrid drivers. I saw 12 last Saturday in only 1 hour.

I spotted them while out for a walk. I stopped at the local hospital for a lab test and then walked home by way of a coffee shop. I never got more than a mile from my house. On this trek, I saw 12 hybrids. Mostly toyota, some honda, a ford escape and a lexus. I also spotted a CNG car from the local power company.

Are these becoming more normal in other parts of the country? Is a hybrid sighting a rare event or an everyday occurance?

Daniel

We are seeing more and more of them around here but not to the rate of 12 per hour (yet). I usually see a few each day, maybe 5ish if I'm out a lot that day but that's pretty rare.

What is CNG?

This is pickup/suburban country, but we'll usually see a few every day. And as GL indicated it depends very much on the neighborhoods.

We were driving in northern California a couple of years ago when I noticed that there were very few pickups on the road. Coming home, between the airport and home, about 9 miles, I stopped counting p/ups at 100.

CNG = compressd natural gas I think

I see a few the 15 miles I commute a day. I see about as many of them as I do older mercedes like my 240 d.

What I find rare anymore is the old vw rabbits, not to mention a rabbit with the mag wheels that look like the letters v and w are ground into the spoke area.

Yes, CNG is compressed Natural Gas. It's considered one of the cleanest fuels, though the energy needed to compress it takes away some of the efficiency.

There are places that are pushing home CNG compressors. You hook it to your natural gas line and it compresses the gas and pumps it into your car overnight. It takes about 16 hours to fill up the equivilent of an 8 gallong gasoline tank. Residential gas lines are typically very low volume and very low pressure.

It's amazing how many CNG vehicles I see around here. They get free access to toll bridges and are allowed in the car pool lanes. Many of the taxi cabs at Oakland airport sport CNG stickers. So are some of the buses in San Francisco.

But back on topic.....

As Bigiron said, it depends on neighborhoods. The first time we topped 10 sightings in one day was near Stanford. The million dollar homes and high tech backgrounds probably helped.

Daniel

Yes, I'm seeing more and more Priuses these days. We also have loads of CNG buses and the largest hybrid electric bus fleet in the country. I think I might be seeing fewer SUVs and other large vehicles but I'm not 100% sure. The SUV never quite caught on in NYC like it did in other parts of the country. Even at its height you had maybe 10 to 15% SUVs here.

Thanks for the info, we have a King Soopers grocery deliver van that runs on natural gas (probably CNG) and has been around town for 10+years. It's the first alternative energy vehicle I had ever seen and kinda cool to see around still.

Yep, seeing more and more hybrids. Takes a bit more observation to notice the Escapes and Civic hybrids than it does to notice a Prius, but they're here. Don't think I've seen a Lexus hybrid. I probably have, just didn't realize it was such. One older gentleman in my area drives an Insight. Mostly I see VW TDI's, older Mercedes diesels, and the new Liberty CRD. I'd be willing to bet that there are no more diesels than hybrids in this area, just that I notice the diesels more.

Many companies in the area use CNG powered Honda Civics, and the vast majority of the city busses are CNG.

:buddies: