[RoundelM3]

Personally, while this is interesting, I think the future is high-tech diesel and eventually, fuel cells. I'm already getting 36mpg in my 335i 8AT on the highway, and the new 528d is supposed to have a 6-cylinder diesel with even higher MPG.

The one thing that bothers me about hybrids is the additional weight, the amount of electricity and time it takes to charge them up, and what to do with the toxic-material batteries when they're no longer usable. Tesla yaks about having charging stations all over the country, but that's years away; my employer has an area in one of our main campus' parking lots that has solar cells for a roof, but a limited number of spaces. For urban and near-suburban commuting, they make sense - but then there's the question of where the additional power for charging comes from.

Unless the additional infrastructure to add more power to the grid is done with wind or solar, we're probably generating more emissions at the power plants than hybrids supposedly would eliminate. What happens when everyone comes home in the evening and plugs their hybrid in? We already get "brownouts" from air conditioning and electric stoves/ovens, etc., in the summertime.

Also - where do people who live in apartments plug in their cars? Do they run a 200-ft extension cord out their door or window? Until there's a way to produce clean additional electric power for charging with a convenient infrastructure, hybrids are not going to be all that practical or popular if you consider the bigger picture. Battery technology still has quite a ways to go yet, but eventually there'll be a better solution.