The Japanese constructors have discovered an effective strategy to deal with the growing costs of the polluting cars: the hybrid car, an idea that was also adopted by some European constructors.

There are fifteen naval ships that do more harm to the environment than all 750 million cars that exist on the road today. That is, one giant naval ship contaminates as much as 50 million cars. Even so, the focus of all the governments is pointed at the individual cars, because they are polluting in the big cities, not in the “green” zones of the oceans. Starting off in 1990, Toyota set about planning to come up with a new type of car. They needed to produce a car that would not pollute the environment. The Prius ended up being the car that was designed to create a revolution, but the price was also an important aspect that affected the sales.

Despite the fact that the Prius may be breaking sales records in the United States, it’s been having difficulties in the European and Japanese markets. As an example, the sales for hybrid cars in Europe are less than 1 % of the entire sales, having a market share almost equal to the sales of the luxury cars with prices over 150 000 dollars.

In contrast to the United States, the European states continue to be not ready to adopt this change. The potential buyers are not inspired to buy those cars and often they are also high priced. The only “bonus” that people get is a decline in the pollution duty. The selling price variation between a hybrid car and a typical gasoline car in the same group is considerable.

Toyota did a survey and concluded that people who drive hybrids are usually people who have college degrees or higher like doctors, lawyers and engineers. These groups think hybrids appealing because of the low fuel consumption. One example is the Lexus RX 450h hybrid SUV where it has a powerful 300 horsepower engine but consumes less gas than your basic 1.4 liter automobile.

A good number of car companies include their own hybrid lines just like Ford has EcoNetic, Volkswagen has BlueMotion and Opel has EcoFlex. This can also be seen in diesel cars as well. While diesel trucks and cars consume less fuel per liter than gasoline cars, diesel fuel itself is more expensive per liter than regular gas. Statistics show that the majority of Europeans would rather drive the more highly effective and less expensive gasoline car than a hybrid or diesel car.

To start with, the Japanese and Americans were not very big on hybrid cars after they were first introduced, like Mercedes initial line of Blutec models, which were considered cancer causing and toxic. However the trucks coming from the 80′s remain on the road today in Europe and in America and they create more harm than any of the newer cars.

The third age group of Prius posseses an impressive 89 grams per kilometer of CO2 emissions which certainly is the same as a Smart diesel car but much bigger. Furthermore, Prius remains the only hybrid that can work only with the electric engine and with a velocity of 50 kilometers for more than one kilometer and it also has an attractive price of only 30 000 Euro.