No hatin, just facts:
Just exactly what savings are you refering to?
The MSRP of a civic hybrid is over $8k more than a comparable non-hybrid civic.
Honda Civic
Add to that the additional stealer mark-up for a hybrid, and you'd be paying a lot of money for that smug.
The hybrid "gets up to 44 cty/44 hwy mpg".
The conventional civic with the 1.8 liter engine "gets Up to 28 cty/36 hwy mpg".
So figure it probably ends up around 30.
So the hybrid gets "up to" 14 mpg better than the regular civic.
Suppose you bought both the civic hybrid and the conventional sedan.
say the hybrid cost $9000 more.
Then you drive them both 100,000 miles. that's assuming the batteries lasted that long.
In the regular civic you'd burn 3333 gallons of gas.
In the hybrid you'd burn 2272 gallons of gas.
At $3.50 a gallon, you'd save $3713.50 in gas.
So in which math class do they teach that is makes sense to spend $9000 to save $3700?
You'd have to drive it 243,000 miles without major repairs to break even!
That's for a 2011 car.
So what about a 2007 used civic hybrid?
Used TMV from $14,361 for the hybrid, Used TMV from $9,890 for the civic sedan.
You'd still be paying almost a $4500 premium for the hybrid, and that's for a 4 year old car that's close to being half used up.
If you bought a 2007 civic hybrid and put 50,000 miles on it, you'd save close to $1900 in gas, but it'd cost you $2900 MORE to own the hybrid.
You'd do better at trade-in time but not enough to break even.
the ONLY way a hybrid civic would make financial sense is if the the GUBMINT paid you to drive it.