Editors at Cars.com, a leading US on-line resource for buying and selling a car, are advising consumers not to let the price of gas panic them into buying hybrid or electric cars.
"When gasoline goes north of $4.00 a gallon, it changes the types of cars people shop for," said David Thomas, Cars.com senior editor. "We saw this in 2008 where the bottom fell out of the SUV market, and people gravitated toward smaller, and often hybrid, vehicles.
“While we certainly support fuel efficient vehicles as a principle, the mistake we see many people make is automatically thinking an electric or hybrid vehicle will inevitably save them more money than the car they currently own."
"Rarely does bad mileage justify shelling out for a new car," added Joe Wiesenfelder, green automotive technology expert and another senior editor at Cars.com. "Bear in mind when considering the economics that the trade-in value of any guzzler plummets at times of high gas prices, while transaction prices for efficient cars skyrocket. If the equation makes no sense based on sticker prices, then it definitely falls apart based on transaction prices."
While acknowledging the obvious benefits of hybrid and electric vehicles, Wiesenfelder believes that buying one solely because of gas prices does not make sense.
