How to Pick Your Hybrid Car Part Tweleve
December 17th, 2006
How to pick the best Hybrid Car for you
© 2006 by Rick Tamlin
The Honda Accord and the Toyota Camry have been long-time arch rivals always vying for the same crowd of consumers. They both have tremendous resale values and are just great at what they were designed to do: To get you from point A to point B as comfortably as possible, for the least amount of cash as possible. (All the while retaining as high of a resale value as possible, too.)
But for some unfathomable reason, the Hybrid market has changed this delicate balance between them. Whereas their prices, power, and other main statistics were always very close as purebred gas-drinkers, the two have completely thrown out the old battle plan and gone their separate ways as hybrids.
The Toyota Camry hybrid (MSRP $25,900) could easily be called the most luxurious non-luxury-sedan ever produced.
It gets an impressive 40 miles per gallon in the city, and only 2 MPGs less on the highway. Excepting for the sub-compact Prius, it also has the longest range (miles between fill-ups) of any hybrid, making the Camry one of the best all-purpose choices to own.
I can only assume the team over at Honda ‘fell asleep at the wheel’ when they responded with the new Accord Hybrid (MSRP $30,990) which only gets a paltry 25 MPGs in the city in comparison. (Although on the highway it can achieve 34 MPGs, but still doesn’t rival the Camry.) In its’ defense, the Accord does have a more powerful engine, a 6-cylinder 3.0 liter, to the Camry’s 4-cylinder with 2.4 liters. I can only assume that Honda wanted to differentiate itself from the Camry for the first time in decades, and they console themselves with the fact that their Civic will be the real money-maker, having practically no competition.
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