they use less gas than conventional cars but what i think is more eco-friendlier than a hybrid car is any car as long as it’s a used car because it is very energy and resource intensive to make a new car especially a hybrid car.

Are they expensive compared to "regular" cars that people can just afford and start driving? (regular cars as in the common ones that use gas as fuel)

They are 15 to 20% more depending on what flavor you want. And some are not going to be easy to resale if the economy does not turn around. If you are using them ONLY FOR SHORTER TRIPS it might be right for you.

Yes, they do not use oil, or they use less oil. However, they rely on energy being produced somewhere else, and for now, that somewhere else is in a power station, and most of those power stations rely on non-renewable energy sources. And that includes all nuclear power stations except fast breeder reactors.

So - should we really consider these types of vehicles as alternative at all?

Yes. Like many people, you are looking at the individual component–not the entire system.

What I mean is this: there are no "magic bullets–no solution that will somehow solve all the technological challenges in one fell swoop. A thechnological system–any system–requires multiple systems working together to achieve the desired goal.

Electric cars (or hydrogen) are one critical component fo that system. For it to be fully effective, of course the electric power has to be prodduced by some means other than burning fossil fuels.

But since that’s not the way we’re producing power now, you think electric cars isn’t a solution? Of course it isn’t–and neither is the rest of the technology you use everyday. Your car is useless without the infrastructure of roads and gas stations to keep it going–the lamp in your office is useless without the power grid to produce the elecricity to power it. Your doctor can do little but stand there and watch people die without all the industries that provide him with medicines and all the othr tools he needs to sae lives.

Start thinking in terms of systems–because that’s how the world oftechnology–any technology–works.

BTW–nuclear energy is renewable. Some nuclear reactors are not breeder reactors. So build more.

I’m wondering if the cost of your electriciy bill will go up a lot when you start charging your new hybrid car (such as a Prius)? Does it completely offset the MPG savings in gasoline? Do you break even? Does it cost MORE in electricity?

There are no plug-in hybrids available right now. All hybrids recharge the batteries while driving via various methods like regenerative braking.

Eventually there will be plug-in hybrids (such as the Chevy Volt and plug-in version of the Prius), but they won’t increase your electric bill too drastically. Electric cars and plug-in hybrids cost about 2 cents per mile to recharge. Cars that run purely on gasoline cost on the order of 10 cents per mile to refuel (for gas at $3/gallon).

In other words, your electric bill will go up (by about $20/month if you drive 1000 miles per month), but your total fueling bill will be cut by 80%.

in particular what happens to batteries from these cars

That type of battery has been around for over 100 years and profit-minded people figured out how to recycle them past the 99% mark. The recycling techniques were developed before the prefix ‘eco’ was coined.

There are three types of electric cars which have confusingly similar names but have different waste products:
(1). the pure hybrids, like the present day Prius
(2). The PHEV, a "plug-in hybrid"
(3). An all-electric car

The pure hybrid eventually gets all of its energy from gasoline but the car, overall, is efficient compared to most cars. This is measurable simply in its mpg rating. But every gallon of gas eventually makes the same type of pollutants as "your father’s oldsmobile".

The PHEV can be "fueled" at a gas station or from your wall socket. The portion of the "fuel" coming from the wall produces pollutants elsewhere but is, in general, much cleaner than a car engine.

There are kits for converting a Prius to a PHEV but the conversion voids the warantee. But, soon, Toyota will be selling a PHEV version of the Prius.

I never understood the mainstream fascination with these things. Most of our electricity comes from coal. Coal is worse then gas, even "clean coal." Personally, I’d prefer a small compact like a Civic or moped.

Is this whole hybrid thing just greenwashing? Or is there a point here that I’m missing. Personally I won’t mind more nuclear energy but I know many other environments don’t like that idea so much.

There is more to a hybrid than the gas mileage, it also reduces emissions, dramatically if you drive in the city or stop and go traffic. Hybrids DON’T plug into the wall, at least not yet. The hybrid is not the final solution, it is just step on the way.

Here is the basics on a hybrid, it operates just like a regular car. I only put gas into it. I have a gas engine and an electric motor. When I’m sitting still both shut off, so no emissions. When I accelerate both kick on so I have plenty of power. If I am going a constant slow speed say under 35 miles an hour my gas engine often shuts off, when I coast both shut off. The battery charges when I’m coasting or braking. My car has been the least expensive car I’ve ever owned, at 6.5 years I have never had a problem, I get the oil changed every 7500 miles, I live in CA and don’t have to get a smog certificate and the tires are cheap too.

They are developing models that plug in, but they generally go to specific markets when that happens, mostly CA and a few other states that support clean energy. In CA we are at the front of the clean energy march. We have strict laws which are systematically decreasing the amount of coal energy that can be produced or used in CA. I already have a solar system on my house, so I know for sure I’ll be using clean energy when I get my electric or plug in hybrid.

No, but I don’t know that the other side would have done any better.

Electric cars would be more efficient and theres absolutely no problem with them and actually a lot less cheaper than all those bio-diesel cars and other competitors. Why is the world the way it is…

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A very good question, which is usually met with assertions that the ‘batteries aren’t ready yet’, which is nonsense. Why do people arguing this point assume that battery technology hasn’t changed in 30 years?
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Let’s have a look at a modern all-electric car, powered by modern EV batteries:
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http://phoenixmotorcars.com/models/fleet.html
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The Phoenix electric pickup truck - this completely gas-free vehicle, using Altairnano (nanotech) li-ion batteries - can:

-Travel up to 250 miles per charge
-Carry 5 passengers plus cargo at 95mph.
-Charges batteries in as little as TEN MINUTES.
-Has batteries that last 250,000 miles (never need replacement.)
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Yes this is a real car, currently in production. Cars are being built for fleet use right now (PG&E is one of the customers.) If nobody stomps on this little company, the cars will be approved for general road use by next year. Several other EV projects are also in development around these batteries.
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Also, don’t listen to the oil-company-sponsored propaganda that EVs pollute because of dirty powerplants, or messy batteries. It’s all nonsense. EVs are several times more efficient than gas cars, and so make much less pollution per mile, even with power coming from the dirtiest powerplants imaginable. This is also why EVs have a very high miles-per-gallon equivalent. Likewise, modern EV batteries are not hazardous, and have very long lifetimes, after which they are fully recyclable. More info in the link below.
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Just wondering.

That’s a great question. My husband was just saying the same thing.

I wish I had a good answer.

Star for you!

I have seen a lot of questions on here or in the news about electric and hybrid cars. It’s all well and good to want to find a way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but that cannt be accomplished without finding an completely new fuel source or vitalising something that already exists, like ethanol or boidiesel for vehicles. electric cars either need fossil fuel in their tank or if its a plug in it uses the fossil fuels by proxy that the local electric company is using. There really aren’t too many areas in the US that are using wind or hydro-electric plants. Most power plants in the US are coal powered I think.

Incorrect. An electric car can travel much further on a smaller amount of fuel, because of vast improvements in energy efficiency.
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The easiest way to demonstrate this is by fuel cost. After all, you will wind up paying for fuel, no matter how it gets to you, right? First, let’s look at gasoline. The typical driver puts about 15,000 miles per year on his car. This works out to 1250 miles per month.
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If this driver’s car gets 20 miles per gallon, this represents 62.5 gallons of gasoline. Using $3.20/gallon (about the price we paid this past summer, and I think it will get back there), our typical driver spends about $200 on gasoline every month.
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An electric car uses kilowatt-hours (KWH) of electricity instead of gasoline. Typically our EV might get from 3 to 7 miles per KWH. So, for this example, we’ll use 4 miles/KWH. In my city, there is a special EV electric rate of just 3 cents/KWH. But in other places, the electric rate could be 10 cents or higher per KWH. So let’s use 6 cents.
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Using these numbers, the same 1250 miles per month - that cost our typical driver $200 for gasoline - only costs $18.75 in electricity for our electric car. The electric "fuel" only costs about 10% of what gasoline does!
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So, using this method, we can approximate that miles driven on electricity are worth 10 times the mileage of miles driven on gasoline, or we could also say it takes one-tenth the amount of fuel for an EV to travel the same distance. (There are other ways to calculate this, but EV mileage is at least 5 times better, and from a money standpoint, as we have seen, up to 10 times better.)
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Why is electric power so much cheaper than gasoline? There are two reasons. The first is that electric motors are far more efficient than gasoline engines, so EVs can drive much further on less fuel. The second reason is fuel transportation costs. The electric car fuels by wire (the electric grid is 95% efficient.) By contrast, your gas car requires a vast fuel transportation infrastructure that ships, pipes, trucks, and retails gasoline around the country (creating additional pollution in the process). The price of this infrastructure is built in to the price of gasoline.
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This is also the reason electric cars pollute much less. Even when dirty fuel is burned at the powerplant, the vast improvement in energy efficiency of electric vehicles means far less pollution per mile.
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SEE REFERENCES BELOW FOR THE NUMBERS I USED.